


Soft: A Story

by beekeepercain



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, Brother Feels, Brotherly Affection, Brotherly Bonding, Brotherly Love, Caring Sam, Childhood, Christmas, Curtain Fic, De-Aged Dean Winchester, Depressed Dean, Domestic, Domestic Fluff, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Gen, Gender Exploration, Hurt/Comfort, Night Terrors, Nightmares, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Young Dean Winchester, mentions of violence against children
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-30
Updated: 2016-12-24
Packaged: 2018-09-03 08:34:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 53,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8705215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beekeepercain/pseuds/beekeepercain
Summary: For centuries, an ancient coven of devil-worshipping witches has preyed upon child victims for their sacrificial rites. Sam and Dean are after them, but as the investigation leads Dean in the wrong place at the wrong time, the coven makes sure neither he nor his brother will cause them any further trouble. They transform Dean back into his child self, leave him in the mountains in a small cardboard box in freezing temperatures and give Sam a choice: he can come for his brother, or he can chase the witches and leave him to die. With no guarantee that his brother will ever be back to his old self, Sam takes Dean back to the motel and begins caring for him - but neither of them knows what to expect of the coming weeks.





	1. Beginning

**Author's Note:**

> Give Dean Winchester a childhood 2k16.
> 
> My utterly, completely pointless NaNoWriMo for this year. The first I've ever published! Yay? Nay? Either way, here it is.  
> Final length is about 56 000 words, the exact will change here or there as I edit and upload the chapters. The fic's finished, and I'll try to upload one or two chapters each day - expecting the full length to be around 10 chapters or so. Subscribe or check in regularly to follow as my low spoon butt gets the chapters up, the usual.
> 
>  **TW for descriptions of child killings and death in the fic.** There's not much of it, but it exists; comes with the subject of choice, go figure.

* * *

* * *

 

 

**Prologue**

 

Snow flurries across the white expanse in front of Sam as he sinks up to the knee into it on each step forwards. He's shuddering, but his expression is steely and cold enough to match the ice in the wind. Once or twice he checks the map for coordinates, but only to make absolutely sure: inside, he feels like something's tugging him forwards. He won't get lost like this. Not even in the dark.

December is unforgiving this far up north. The cult was more so.

The cardboard box sits idly in the middle of nowhere, with no tracks in the snow to show where it came from or even indicate who brought it there, but Sam needs to identification. It doesn't have any air holes pierced into it, but in this weather, it could be more a blessing than a danger - the less the winter's cold gets inside, the better. He wraps his arms around the box and pulls it up, expecting it to be heavy, expecting to have to _lift,_ but it bounces up with a mere tug and he has to cling onto it harder to stop it from falling from his arms while he still tries to figure out how to hold it properly. He presses a knee against the bottom bowing down with the weight of half of Sam's soul within it. It's not even heavy enough to break through the cardboard.

Good.

He traces his steps back to the car through the invisible hiking path leading up the mountainside. The Impala looks sugarcoated, as if it's sat there abandoned for a week, but he knows better. Gently, he places the cardboard box on the backseat and slips to sit beside it himself, closing the door behind him. He breathes out not a white cloud but invisible air instead, as the car's interior still retains the warmth from the travel up here. He's thankful about it as his skin still prickles with cold, but the blanket on the backseat is not for him.

It's for his brother.

He pulls out a small silver knife from his belt and swallows hard before pressing the blade against the brown tape holding the cardboard box closed. He runs it gently along the middle, breaking the tape apart, and then pulls the pieces apart. His body relaxes, shoulders falling down and lungs emptying in relief the moment his eyes catch a glimpse of the body inside. Fragile but familiar, wrapped inside the red plaid shirt his brother was wearing the day before, wrapped, in fact, just like a gift in time for Christmas; to Sam, it really could be that.

He's shaking slightly as he pushes his fingers into the middle of the small boy curled within to tug aside the shirt from his face. Red parted lips with the knuckle of a thumb between them, blush-ridden freckled cheekbones, long dark lashes clumped together and boyish-soft mousy light brown hair styled with cheap gel - he could identify Dean based on a fraction of the characteristics immediately visible to him at first glance. God, he could identify him by scent alone, even though right now it's sweeter than he's used to, lacking some sharper, deeper tone that he's used to inhaling with the rest. He's spent his entire life enveloped in that scent, learned it by heart as a small kid with his face pressed into his brother's chest while they slept in the same bed under the same blanket. Now he's closing his eyes and shuddering, trying to battle against tears, and he's not sure if they're tears of relief or of loneliness. He's feeling both near equally, and the combination is crushing him from the inside out.

Half a minute later, his both palms are inside the cardboard box. He tightens the flannel around the boy's body before pulling him out as carefully as he can, and in a moment, he's got all of Dean against him, and he holds him tight with his nose squished against the top of the boy's head. He's listening to his breathing, the steady, deep and quiet sound of his inhales and exhales, and as he waits for his own throat to clear up enough for him to move again, Dean's hand fists into his shirt signaling the first stages of the spell breaking over him.

He'll wake up soon, but Sam wants it to be in the motel room, not here in the middle of nowhere.

He makes sure Dean's warm, that the box didn't stand out in the cold for too long, but his temperature seems appropriate enough. Then, he loosens the flannel around him until he can wrap it around Dean's body again, pulling his arms through the now extremely oversized sleeves that he then wraps and wraps until they're bundled up over his wrists, and he buttons up the shirt so that it at least clings to Dean's body that way without slipping off like an oddly shaped blanket.

He's got no clothes for a child. This'll have to do - for now.

Then, with all of this done, he opens the door again and carries Dean onto the front seat with him. He sets the boy over his lap and starts driving back to the small town, the lights of which glow against the brewing storm like a pile of shimmering gold in the midst of a pale blue nothingness with mountains on most sides breaking apart the horizon.

He tries not to cry, if only to keep his brother safe.


	2. Baby Steps

* * *

 

  
Dean's eyes are still an extraordinary shade of green the moment he opens them. Sam's there, sitting, and Dean's mostly resting over his lap. Beside them, the old laptop whirrs quietly, blasting warm air gently against Dean's thigh still hidden somewhere beneath a layer of soft flannel. He doesn't seem aware of his surroundings yet, and Sam lets him come to at his own pace - sometimes, he slips away again, lids closing slowly as another wave of magical anesthesia moves over him, but reliably enough, he comes back every time a little sooner than before. His fists grip the pillow on his other side and Sam's sweatpants on the other, and he lets out a small wavering gasp before starting to pull himself up. Sam presses his palm over his side as he sits there taking in the world around him, just making sure that if he's going to wake up scared, he won't rush into hurting himself: the bed's much further up from the ground for him right now than it was a mere day before, and he's not sure if Dean realises that yet.

On the bedside table beside them, two tall mugs of takeaway hot chocolate sit in waiting. The contents still radiate with warmth.

"'s okay, Dean," Sam tells the back of the boy's head.  
He closes the laptop and lets go of Dean's body as the other starts looking around, seeming as if sprinting up and away hasn't quite yet occurred to him.  
"How're you feeling?"

Slowly, Dean turns towards him. He's small. Everything about him is small. His nose, his mouth, his shoulders, his hands, the bumps of his knees under the flannel, everything. A smile tugs at the corner of Sam's mouth but in reality he's scared to death of this. Of everything. They've been in trouble before but he's not sure how to fix this one.

"What the hell happened to me?" Dean asks him, his voice a hoarse breath of air as if his vocal cords have never been used before.

He tries to clear his throat, managing to raise a flood of tears into his eyes. Sam wants to brush them away but he's afraid of touching him like this. Not sure if he wants his touch to be the thing that makes Dean aware of the changes. He doesn't even know what to say - how could he describe this?

"You, um," he starts.

Dean's looking at him like he's never seen him before. Wide-eyed. Pale. Shaking.

"You got... caught. While scouting the scene of the ritual."

There's no other way to put it. Dean can put together the rest. Or at least his former self could have. Sam's not sure about the new Dean - not sure if a six years old's brains are as good at putting together verbal puzzles as those of a thirty-something's.

"Caught?" Dean says, his voice still shredded into non-existence, "You mean -"

He closes his eyes. Bows his head. Shudders so violently Sam's certain he's about to throw up. Then, slowly, he opens his eyes again and looks at himself all over. He brings his hands in front of his face and pulls at the huge flannel-blanket around him, then grabs Sam's hand and wheezes in horror at the sight of his own fist barely managing to wrap around Sam's pinky finger. And then comes the stumbling that Sam expected at first: the charging towards a random direction.

Dean's foot catches first onto the sheets, then onto the laptop's cable, and he sends himself flying face first towards the edge of the bed, but Sam's there to catch him - one hand over the chest is enough to stop the motion.

He's so fucking _small._

"Let go," he mewls, "I've gotta - gotta _see._ "

Sam holds him tighter, pulls him up and plants him on the floor. He doesn't even think to complain, just rushes across the motel room into the bathroom where he can't even reach the damn mirror. Sam follows him, watches him try to cling to the sink's edge. Tip-toe for the mirror so far up above him that he stands no chance at seeing even the ends of his hair in it.

Gently, Sam offers his phone for him with the camera app already turned on. Dean takes it and stares at himself, an array of expressions rushing over his features. Then, idly, he hands the phone back to Sam and crashes onto the floor. The flannel somewhat subdues the impact, and his knees barely make a sound as he falls on them. He hugs them close to his body and hides his face.

"Fuck," he's whimpering, "fuck - _fuck_ , fuck."

It sounds terrible coming from a small child, but Sam doesn't stop him. He doesn't know what to do, either - barely more than Dean does. Eventually, however, he kneels on the floor beside his brother, who's clearly struggling to stop crying: tears stream down his face and he's wiping them away vigorously, leaving behind red streaks over his flaring cheeks. Sam wipes his face for him and tips his chin up.

"I got us some hot chocolate," he tells him in a tone he realises sounds like he's really talking to a crying child, "Not sure if your stomach can handle caffeine, so I - but I thought it might help. Get your blood sugar up and keep you warm."

"How do I get back to normal, Sam?" Dean yelps at him - or would, if his hoarse voice would give out anything but pitiful shrieks, "I've got to get back to normal. I can't stay like this. Sam, fuck, Sam - get me back to normal. Please. Please, Sam. Please."

He's shaking again, and a thought is brewing inside Sam's mind - a thought he barely dares to consider. That maybe this really isn't - maybe it really isn't Dean the way he knows him. Maybe it's the Dean that existed when Sam was two years old, the Dean before his earliest memories. The Dean he knows today... would never fall apart pleading. Gently, he presses his palm over the boy's back and pulls him close and Dean all but clings to him, small fists gripping his shirt as he lets the shock and tears take over. Sam holds him, face pressed against his head again, until he finally scoops him off the floor entirely and brings him back to the bed.

"Take it," he tells Dean and hands him the floppy, warm cardboard cup, "It shouldn't be too hot anymore."

It looks gigantic in Dean's hands and Sam realises he should have brought him a smaller cup - there's too much cup and too much hot chocolate in this one for his small body. For Sam, his cup is nothing; it fits perfectly within the grasp of a single hand, but Dean needs both of his to lift his own.

Just like the flannel, just like Sam's bed, everything's just too big for him now. Or he's just very small. Small enough to fit in a box. Unthinking, Sam brushes his palm through Dean's hair. It earns him a scorching look; the kid's eyes are red from crying and still teary, but he manages the warning look of his older self fairly well anyway. It makes Sam smile unwillingly.

"We'll figure this out, Dean," he tells him, "Just not tonight, alright? I'm exhausted."

"If you think I'm gonna sleep before we get me fixed, you're wrong," Dean throws right back at him.  
He's sipping his enormous cup of hot chocolate and it seems to be clearing out his throat somewhat, but the broken voice that tries to command Sam is high and scared.  
"Just tell me what happened, Sam. All of it. I can't stay like this."

Sam brings his cup to his lips and sighs.

 

* * *

 

The cops found the first kid tied to a tree with all kinds of symbols carved into her body, stark naked for anyone to see. That had started it all a little over three years ago, but it had taken this long for it to become a case. Sam had followed it, of course. It was up his alley, not as a hunter but because of his layman interest in serial killings. Despite the horrific details of each crime that popped up along the years, there was nothing to indicate a supernatural origin - the only suspicious element of the crimes was that none of the victims was ever identified. It had, for a long time, seemed as if none of these children had ever existed prior to becoming yet another tallymark on the killer's list of successes, but Sam, like most of the experts following the case, had simply assumed they were from troubled families, likely victims of trafficking. After two years and five small bodies, all unidentified and left unclaimed by loved ones, the case simply got so depressing that for the time being, Sam dropped following it.

The next time he heard about it, it was from Dean a mere month ago.

Someone had identified a victim, but that's where it got strange: the woman claimed it was her husband, and that her husband wasn't six years old, but rather sixty-five. She had the photos to prove it, and was heartbroken enough to convince anyone, if only her story hadn't been so insane. But just like for Dean, for Sam, that one seemingly insane story was the missing piece that suddenly made the picture whole. And for Sam, it was a relief.

This was now his concern. Officially.

It took them three weeks to make out the pattern, and figure out that these killings - these sacrifices - were all made in spiritually significant, yet remote and often forgotten, locations. For those three weeks, it was their sole case, as nothing else seemed to be popping up; it was as if the winter had inexplicably driven all other monsters into their hiding holes to hibernate. Dean kept referring to it as the spirit of Christmas finally reaching them, but Sam considered it more a coincidence. Hunting wasn't a five days a week kind of a job, and sometimes, not too uncommonly either, it took ages for another case to pop up. With nothing else to fill up their days, however, they soon found themselves unearthing something of a conspiracy: it led them to an elder coven of dark witches that had later turned into a bona fide demon-worshipping cult and somehow made its way through at least two centuries of child sacrifice before suddenly disappearing as if wiped from the face of the earth. Now, they had resurfaced, and it seemed that the secret to their former invisibility was none other than changing victimology. A child was a high profile victim - a dead child was a tearjerker, a tragedy, a public event. Someone older, on the other hand... not too many people cared if they plucked their victims from the sidelines of society. Addicts, prostitutes, the homeless - anyone above the age of 18 in desperate circumstances was good to go. The less family they had, the better; sometimes they'd snatch a man whose life revolved around taking care of his aging mother, sometimes a lesbian prostitute whose sole contact was her partner, likewise a working girl. Mostly, however, these were lone people, and it made sense, as the one killing that had piqued the interest of the Winchesters had, in fact, been the killing of a middle-class husband and father of three.

But that wasn't the end of the story. Despite the fact that adults were easier to kidnap, adults, especially the type that the coven had switched to, were seen as less pure and therefore less valuable as sacrifices. Perhaps they had ran their business with adult victims for a while, explaining their seeming disappearance near fifty years prior, but now, they had found not only a way that ensured that their victims would _never_ be identified again, but also the means to turn these seemingly valueless sacrifices into occult nuggets of gold: the coven had harnessed a spell that could turn an adult of any age back into a child.

It wasn't an illusion. An illusion charm would have been essentially useless for their ends, but this was not it. An illusion charm would have faded upon death; these children stayed children even as life left their bodies. There was nothing to indicate reversibility or indeed a trace of make-believe in the corpses that Sam and Dean poked at during the fourth week of their investigation. What lay motionless before them, gutted and carved and mutilated beyond recognition, was a six years old boy with the body and brains all according to appearance.

It was extremely powerful magic.

On the first week of December, they had finally caught up with the rituals. The mountain range made tracking potential sacrificial sites difficult, so a couple days after arriving when nowhere specific had stood out yet, they split up to scout as many locations as possible to find any signs of the rite being prepared. And that was when everything went wrong.

Sam couldn't reach Dean's cellphone after 3pm. At first, he thought nothing of it; the mountains, while also making scouting a pain in the ass, interfered with cell signal often enough for Dean to complain about it constantly. When he didn't turn up for the 6pm meet-up at the diner, however, he knew that something was wrong. Horribly, horribly fucking wrong.

He drove around looking for any signs of his brother, hiked up a mountainside as far as the snow would let him move, but there was nothing - not a sign of Dean having ever existed to begin with, much less anywhere near this town or its surroundings. At 11pm, he'd returned to the motel room hoping against hope that Dean would have turned up while he'd been looking - that he'd find him there, pissed off at _his_ disappearance, but well and alive regardless.

Dean's stolen car, the one he'd been left with after losing a match of rock-paper-scissors, had not been on the parking lot, and Dean himself just the same had not appeared safely back into the room. Instead, Sam had found a letter written in fresh blood, a gesture so dramatic that had he been with his brother, he would have laughed about it. Now the only thing he could think of was if it was the blood of his only remaining family.

The note is simple. Sam digs it out of his pocket now and lays it on the bed between himself and his small, anxious big brother. Dean stares at it, and for a while, Sam thinks he's reading. Then, he raises his wide eyes back to Sam and stares at him expectingly.

"What's it supposed to say?" he asks, voice split between fear and frustration.

Sam swallows.

"You can't - read?" he asks, stuttering, as he picks the note back up.

Dean shakes his head slightly.  
"Of course I can _read_. But that's just letters."

"Yeah, Dean - all - all writing's _just letters,_ " Sam utters.

Dean keeps staring at him.

"Alright," Sam finally says, "It, uh. It says..."  
He peers at the note before shuddering and folding it up again. Eyes closed, he sums it up.  
"That they've got you. That unless I drop the case, I'll never see you alive again. That I know what they've done to you and if there's any indication I'm still after them, they'll... so I dropped it. I did nothing for the rest of the night. In the morning, I did nothing again - I didn't even get my coffee from across the street. I didn't know how else to tell them, since I couldn't contact them, I had nothing - but in the afternoon, I got a text message from a made-up number. It had coordinates in it and I just knew that they'd left you there and vanished. So I... went and picked you up. And now you're here."

He opens his eyes again. Dean's pale.

"I don't remember," he says, "I - I remember being in... some ruins. A log cabin or something in - in the mountains. The roof was down, there was snow everywhere. But then nothing, and before that, nothing. I don't know. Sammy, I don't... I don't remember anything."

Even as he lifts the big cup of hot chocolate to his mouth, Dean's shaking.

"You think they - you think they'll come after me?" the boy asks the bed, seemingly too ashamed or anxious to look up at Sam.

"No, Dean, I - I think they're just gone. I don't think they wanna pick a fight with me. It was sheer luck that they got to you, and they know it. They don't want to take the risk of coming back. And they know, with you in that state, I've got to... they know that you're my priority. That I won't do anything stupid as long as you depend on me."

"We're gonna kick their ass. All their asses. Once I'm back to normal... we're gonna find them and we're gonna fight 'em."

"Dean," Sam breathes out, reaching out to wipe a trail of hot chocolate running down Dean's chin, "Enough of that for now, okay? Honestly, I - I'm tired. I nearly lost you and now that you're here I just want to keep us safe and sound until I find a way to fix you."

"I'm gonna fight 'em," Dean repeats and drinks more.

He's got chocolate all over his mouth, the light brown liquid sticking to the peach fuzz over his upper lip. It's about as reminiscent of his facial hair as his voice is low - that is to say, not even with good intentions and imagination. Sam watches him for a while in silence before chuckling and turning away.

He stares into nothing for a moment before stretching and placing his empty cup back on the bedside table.

"You wanna shower first?" he asks the boy.

Dean seems startled by the question and throws a glance towards the bathroom, then at Sam, and finally back at his hands. He seems to be struggling with something, but it takes Sam forever to realise that the thought of going there alone now likely seems scary to him. In Dean's state, it would be to him. In fact, he realises suddenly, he might have been scared of showering alone in a strange, smelly old motel room bathroom _anyway_ as a kid, even without the threat of a witch coven looming over him. Especially after Dean showed him _Psycho_ that one time.

"Or, you know what," he finds himself saying after clearing his throat first in a throughout manner, "We could make sure there's enough hot water for both of us and just share. I mean, if you've got nothing against that."

Dean nods shortly.  
"Okay, I guess."

"C'mon, then."

They migrate into the small bathroom together, and Dean hops on the toilet to wrestle himself out of the bag he's wearing. He hands it to Sam, who accepts it without a second thought and hangs it next to the towel. It takes him a bit longer to undress, and Dean's already under the shower when Sam gets there. He feels gigantic compared to his big brother now: Dean's barely up to his hip, and with his hair flat... not even quite that far. Feeling a little weird about it, Sam crouches down to get back on Dean's level. Down there, the water's sprays already feel cooler than up where he'd normally stand. Dean turns and stares at him.

"Why did you grow that big?" he asks, and while Sam assumes he intended his voice to be that lazy, mocking tone he often uses with him, it comes out... childishly curious instead.

It tugs at his lips until he has to huff and look down to suppress his smile, and he shrugs in response to Dean.  
"I had to one-up you on something, I guess," he says quietly and looks back at Dean from under his brows.

Dean gives him a look and turns away.  
"Well," he mutters into the shower's white noise, "Now you've got me one-upped on everything."

"Try to think of it as a vacation."

"A vacation?" the kid repeats with a scoff, "Yeah, right. We can finally go to Disneyland."

"Yeah, when we win the lottery, then maybe."

Sam picks himself up again and reaches for the bottle of shampoo they've just restocked on: it's big and heavy, but the cap's already broken. It's what you get for buying cheap, he figures as he squirts a bunch on his palm and replaces the bottle on the flimsy shelf. Dean lets out a sound of protest when Sam rubs the shampoo into his hair, but really - he's not going to be able to handle the bottle on his own. It's weird, really. Weird that Dean's so small, weird that his motor skills are clearly way below his adult state, weird that he can't read, weird that his voice is so light and lacks the firm edge and low gravelly rawness from before, weird that he's _not_ Dean but that he's also... _Dean_. His small fingers latch onto Sam's again and try to wrestle his hand off, but Sam makes sure to rub all of the shampoo in before letting him have his way. Then he crouches back down again and just watches the boy, now covered in foam, wash himself: he's got no scars, no bullet holes, no rough calloused skin and no damn hair anywhere, and he's covered in freckles like he's been living it up on a beach for a month straight. Everything about him screams fragile - the curve of his round jaw, his pointy nose, his plump arms and thighs and stomach, the way he curves his toes into the filthy tile floor below. Fragile, fragile, fragile.

And Sam loves him. Fiercely. Protectively.  
  
He adjusts and drags his still soapy palm through his own hair in an absent manner.  
What the hell are they going to do about this?

Dean crouches down - it takes Sam a moment to realise he's trying to get his attention, and that the only way he could achieve that was to get on level with the floor where Sam's gaze had fallen.

"You gonna wash or what?" Dean asks him suspiciously.

Sam chuckles and stands up to get more shampoo in his hair.

Well, it's a mess alright - but first things still need to come first, and tomorrow's priority number one is getting Dean some damn clothes. Research be damned.

 

* * *

 

The warm shower seems to take the edge off of Dean and remind him that he should be exhausted by now. He's moving slower and yawning as he stuffs his mouth with some leftover chips from the bottom of the bag while Sam tries to convince his body that some room-temperature mineral water is really enough in terms of nutrition: it's the only thing they've got left after the chips. Grocery shopping wasn't exactly on his list of things to do while his brother was still missing.

All things considered, Dean's taking it well enough. He might be anxious and he might be frustrated, but at least he's not freaking out. For Sam, a transformation like that seems like a nightmare, but Dean's playing it off as an inconvenience. His new shape doesn't seem to bother him in itself, only its uselessness does, the fact that it's underdeveloped and weak. He pulls on another flannel, buttons it up so that three buttons remain without pair until Sam takes over and redoes the whole thing, and then he climbs up into his bed and sits down, salt still peppering his lips until he licks them clean, and watches Sam keenly.

"C'mon, Sam. Get in bed. You said you were tired."

"I am."

"Then get in the bed already - and turn off the lights."

"Bossy, huh?"

Dean squints.  
"I'm still your big brother, you know."

"Uh-huh."  
Sam drags his fingers over the light switch and the room falls dark around the curtain-covered window which still glows with the lights outside. He makes his way blindly to his bed and dives in, kicking the blanket first out of his way and then over his body once he's comfortably curled up in the middle.  
"Well - night, Dean."

"Night, Sammy."

It takes around ten minutes for Sam to realise he's not about to sleep as easy as he thought. Every sound, every shivering breath that Dean lets out in the bed a couple feet away from his seems to shake him awake again. In the end, he lets his eyes open again and aim towards the glow of the window ahead, his brain falling quiet but staying as wakeful as ever as if he's on guard duty on a hunt that could go wrong at any moment. His heart is pounding, but he's not sure why; because of low blood sugar, because of anxiety, because of something else? No matter the cause, the end result is the same - he's not about to fall asleep.

He shifts, trying to get his body into a position where the ceaselessly working muscle stops battering his ribcage to remind him of its existence, but it's still there no matter how he twists and turns. And so is the endless night around him, the weight of darkness resting over his features like a sheet hiding a dead body underneath. He feels cocooned, trapped, tied, and stress creeps up like a line of ants crawling along his spine. How the hell are they going to fix Dean? As much as they've learned about witchcraft during their lives, they've never been witches, much less witches in a coven with centuries of history and research in the dark arts backing up their skills. The truth is, if the spell won't wear off on its own - and Sam can't rely on it having an expiration date, there being no other survivors than his own brother - there's no reason to believe that either of them can even so much as figure out what made the original script work. Undoing it, finding a magical antidote for it, without knowing anything about the source?

They'd need something that can reverse a spell that might not be binding, but transformative in nature. A binding spell, an illusion or a curse, stays upon its victim, and can be removed. A transformative spell is temporary in nature - it only exists for the course of the transformation, which could be over in a matter of moments, and leaves its victim altered forever in its wake with no undo feature. There is no magic to lift from the body, as there is none left after the spell has worked its course.

Could there be an artifact of some shape - a blessed object, perhaps - that has the power to reverse the spell even after it's taken effect?

Sam's bed seems to be swaying gently. His lips part with slow, steady breaths falling out like raindrops. The room dims out - fades into visions he's barely aware of - but then something moves again, stirring him back to full consciousness. And suddenly, Dean's there; he's climbing onto Sam's bed and sitting next to him, small hand pressing against his side.

"Sam?" Dean breathes out in a choked tone.

"Yeah? I'm awake."

"I'm - there's something in the room. I can hear it movin'."

Sam lifts his body up from the bed and listens, his palm resting over Dean's flannel-covered thigh as if to make sure he's not disappearing. He can't pick up anything, however.

"I don't hear it, Dean."

"There's something in the corner. Look. Right there, by the door."

Dean's hand shakes a little when he points a finger briefly in the direction. And yeah, Sam can see that, at least; it's a pile of bags, his own on top of the large black one containing their weapons. Suddenly, everything makes sense and he finds himself smiling.

"It's just the bags, Dean. Nothing more. But I believe you, I do. So - you, uh, wanna stay here in case we need to - you know. Get out quickly, or something?"

"Could you check it, at least?" Dean asks him, ignoring the question.  
He sounds breathless and terrified.

"Sure," Sam huffs gently and turns on the bedside light again.

As the room flickers into view enveloped within a golden glow, he slips down from the bed and checks every corner: he flips around the bags, moves around the chairs and even glimpses underneath the beds before finally peering into the bathroom and then crawling back on his bed where Dean's still sitting cross-legged, hugging himself with one arm. His eyes are wide but tired - he can barely keep them open.

"Nothing here, Dean. Grab your pillow."

Shortly, his brother nods and brings his pillow in. When he's safely back on Sam's bed, Sam turns off the lights again and holds the blanket up so that Dean can crawl right in with him. He's got cold toes that he pushes right between Sam's shins to warm them up, and after hesitating only for a short moment, Sam brings his arm around Dean's small frame and holds him close.

"I'll make sure nothing gets in, Dean. Get some sleep."

"Mm."

 


	3. Play Dating

* * *

 

Sam wakes up hours before his small, warm bundle of a brother curled up so close to him does. He spends forty minutes like that, his consciousness flowing in and out of dream state as his eyes sometimes open to gaze at the softly lit window with the sunrise slowly turning the scenery behind brighter. All he does is listen to Dean's quiet breathing; he barely dares to look at him, but he can never forget him, not with his small fists pressing against his side and his tiny form nuzzling up against him, and he finds himself oddly happy about the situation.

It's scary - and yes, he's scared. Probably more than Dean has the capacity to be in his situation, with the weight of it, and the resolution to it, sitting on his little brother alone. But more than that, there's a strange calm to this. A contentness has brewed up inside Sam during the night that he can't quite pinpoint, like he's not in a hurry with this one. Somehow, he feels like he's almost prepared for this now. Yes, the start will be rough. Yes, he'll still have to rush for the cure. For the time being, however, he's just glad that they're both there... and maybe, just maybe, Dean will finally have the chance to recover.

It's a strange thought. A strange, daring, a little unkind thought that Sam really has no business thinking of, but all the same, it's stuck in his brain. His brother has always had to be the strong one, the protective one, the one with all the responsibility. He's never gotten to share that burden with Sam - he's never had the chance, or the choice, in the matter. But now? Now, the balance has shifted. Sam is not his to protect now. He's Sam's. And hopefully, it'll mean something. Hopefully, it'll give him a chance to heal.

Slowly and carefully Sam picks himself up from the bed, making sure that Dean never wakes up to him stirring beside him. He offers Dean a pillow to cuddle instead and watches his small older brother curl up around that pillow instead like some kind of a monkey baby looking for its mother's warmth, and he finds himself smiling. Damn, this kid is cute. He never had the chance to appreciate that growing up: to him, Dean has always looked way bigger, way more mature than he did. Now, however, he's plump and blushy and covered in freckles with his thick lashes tangled up, and he's got a tiny nose above a parted pair of round lips, and stubby soft fingers and round limbs and a little bit of a pudge in the middle. To Sam, nothing has ever quite seemed that precious.

Shivering, he lowers himself back on the bed, brushes his finger over Dean's cheek and smiles at him.

"You'll be okay, Dean," he speaks to him quietly before pulling up and looking around.

The first thing they need is breakfast, and with any luck, he can just sneak out and get some before Dean's waking up.

 

* * *

 

"Where were you."

It's not really a question. It's an accusation, and Dean's throwing it out there with a bitter, pouty voice. He sits on the bed with his short legs hanging over the edge and not quite reaching the floor, and his small fists grip the bed covers with upset determination.

_You left me_ , he's really saying.

Dean's never been good about that.

Sam drops the bag on the table and leans beside it, brushes back his hair and sighs.  
"Sorry, Dean," he says with a hint of a grimace, "I thought you'd sleep through it. I just went to get breakfast for us. You couldn't really come with me anyway, you don't have any clothes -"

"You should have woken me up, then. And told me where you were going. Not just left me here."

"Sorry, Dean."  
Sam shifts idly before starting to unpack the bag. A steamy box full of fresh pancakes, some jam, a cup of freshly-pressed orange juice - it's not a breakfast for Dean. It's a breakfast for a kid. In his current state, however, Sam feels as if bringing him coffee and bacon is a bit too much.  
"Come eat, okay?"

"Don't vanish like that ever again, Sam."

He sounds so desperate for authority, and Sam grants him a look but doesn't answer. His bare feet pitterpatter on the motel room's floor as he crosses it and finally hops onto a chair that's suddenly a bit too big for him, and he drags up his food and looks at it suspiciously. His round, boyish eyes narrow as he stares at the pancakes - and then he finds the jam. He reaches for it, picks it up and turns the packet around with growing discontent.

"What's this?" he asks.

"Raspberry jam?" Sam offers gently as he sits down and opens up his cup of porridge.

"Where's my bacon?"

"In the diner."

"I don't eat friggin' pancakes."

Sam shrugs.  
"Try them."

Dean growls. He has some minor difficulties picking up the fork, and Sam's not sure if it's just because his motor skills have suddenly been reduced to a fraction of what he's used to or because he's still sleepy and recovering from earlier, but it only seems to sour his mood further. When he stuffs a pancake up his mouth like some kind of a hairless hamster, however, he suddenly seems to cheer up again. He doesn't say anything and Sam doesn't expect him to - it's still his brother, and Dean would never admit being wrong about something as important as breakfast - but he does reach for him and stop him by pulling at his oversized sleeve when he suddenly packs up and starts moving away from the table.

"Whoa, whoa. Where are you heading?" he asks Dean, who shrugs annoyedly to break free from Sam's grasp.

"Just there," he announces, then continues on his way hugging his box of pancakes against his chest.

In a moment, he's back on the bed again with his pancakes in one hand and the remote in another: he turns on the TV, channel surfs for a bit, and then stops on a rerun of America's Funniest Home Videos. Sam raises his brows, a plastic spoonful of porridge half-way into his mouth, but recovers quickly enough. Fine, he thinks - at least it's age-appropriate entertainment and should keep Dean pacified for a while. Feeling a little stiff from the cold the day before, he stands up himself, gathers up his coffee and his porridge and joins Dean on the bed.

"Make way," he huffs, shooing Dean to the side as he sits down before the TV.

They sit there until the end of the show, and it's been a long time since Sam's seen Dean smile the way he does now over something as simple as videos of muddy dogs throwing their owners into freezing cold puddles of dirt.

 

* * *

 

"Hey, excuse me? Sorry."  
Sam moves between the blonde woman and the door and smiles apologetically.  
"Are you in a hurry?"

She looks suspicious.  
"Why?" she asks, and Sam understands why.

His smile widens and turns more apologetic as he blocks the door entirely, leans to the frame and takes a pained breath before talking.

"Sorry, I just - I need to ask a favour. I saw you have a boy, um, around - this tall, right?" he explains, measuring around Dean's present height.

The receptionist behind them shuffles some papers and looks at them as suspiciously as the woman is looking at Sam.

"Yes. I do," the woman says.

"Look, this is really awkward, and I can pay you, but - does he happen to have some clothes he doesn't like or can't wear anymore, or just clothes that are dirty or something, because, ugh, my brother -"  
The word just slips out, and momentarily Sam's stunned, wondering what the woman will think of a man in his mid-thirties having a brother whose age is not even one third of his own, but he carries on as if there was, or at least there should be, nothing strange about the fact.  
"- my brother and I, we're stuck here. The roads, you know. And, uh, as it happens, he's out of clothes, we've got nothing for spares, and he needs to wear something if we're gonna go buy new ones today. So I was wondering if your son had anything you could lend us, just for today. I promise I'll bring them back washed later, I just need them for a couple hours so we can buy some of our own."

The woman's expression relaxes and she pulls her bag up her shoulder, then thinks for a moment. Then she nods.

"What happened to his stuff?" she asks him as Sam steps out of the way and opens the door for her.

"Long story," Sam grimaces, his heart pounding slightly, "But the gist of it is that they're wrecked and I thought we'd go check out the second-hand store in town today to make up for it."

She nods.  
"Kids, right?" she sighs, "Funny you have a brother that age."

"Uh, yeah. I'm pretty sure no one expected that to happen. It was a little weird at first."

_It still hasn't stopped being weird,_ Sam thinks to himself as they cross the parking lot towards the room the woman with her son and his father are all staying. Sam had seen them check in two days ago, for four days; he recalled that the man was in town for business, whatever that meant.

"I bet," she chuckles, "Can you wait outside while I dig through the bags?"

"Sure thing."

And he does. She's right to be cautious about inviting strangers to a motel room. The chill of the cold morning digs through his jacket but he barely notices: all he thinks about is the trip to the store, and the hope that the clothes will come cheap. They don't have much in terms of a budget. Under four minutes the woman is back at the motel room's door, handing him a plastic bag with a pair of jeans and a worn green shirt inside. He accepts them with a genuinely grateful expression.

"Thank you. You're a life-saver. I'm gonna bring these back before five, if that's alright?"

"Sure. No need to pay anything, Jack wore those yesterday so they're just going in the laundry anyway. We'll deal with that later, but thanks for the offer, anyway."

"Thank you. Really, thank you. I'll - see you later?"

"Yeah. What's your name?"

"Winchester. Sam."  
Sam smiles, reaching out his hand. She grabs it and nods.

"Thompson. Maybe your brother would like to play with Jack later?"

"Uh, I'll ask him. He might still feel a little down from the cold he had, but - if he wants to, I'll bring him over later."

"Alright. See you later, Sam."

"See you, too."

Sam turns and shoe-skates over to the stairs leading up to the second floor rooms. The pathway up there is slippery from all the warm shoes constantly moving in and out of the rooms, but he makes it back up with no incident. Dean opens the door for him and eyes the bag he's carrying with anxiety.

"What did you get?" he asks, and Sam steers him off the doorway so that he can get back indoors to show him.

"Jeans and a long-sleeve shirt. No jacket, but we're just hopping in and out the car anyway," Sam tells him.

He spreads the clothes on the bed and lets Dean inspect them. Then, unceremoniously enough, Dean pulls off the huge shirt he's wearing, picks up the jeans and dips his feet into them.

"I'd like some underwear," he grumbles as he closes the zipper and buttons the jeans with some minor difficulties, "but I guess none is better than wearing someone else's."

"Yeah," Sam sighs, "Look, we'll - get something for you, I promise."

Dean nods before diving inside the borrowed shirt. When he surfaces again, he still seems dissatisfied about something.

"This smells weird," he compains and drags the fabric up to his nose for a whiff, "Yeah, definitely weird."

"Just - deal with it for a little bit, okay?"

"Mm. I want my own clothes."

"Yeah, I know. But unless you want to hold your pants up while you hop around like a rabbit, I'd suggest you just -"

"Yeah, yeah. Shut up, Sam."

"Let's go, then?"

"Yeah."

They exit the motel room and climb down the stairs, Dean very slowly with some extra care with the stairs suddenly much bigger and steeper than the last time he saw them. When they're down and sliding across the parking lot for the Impala, he's tugging at his jeans, trying to keep them off his skin.

"This is gross," he mutters when he scoots up onto the shotgun seat by climbing underneath Sam's arm and onto the driver's seat first, as if he owned that door and wouldn't use the other at any cost, "I'm wearing some dirty kid's jeans. You know he could have done _anything_ with these on."

He's silent for a moment as Sam settles behind the wheel.

"Like _farted_ in them."

Sam looks at him, brows climbing up, as Dean's nose crinkles up in displeasure.

"Put on your belt," Sam tells him.

"What?"

"The seat belt."

" _What?_ " Dean repeats, looking at him incredulously, "Are you planning to crash my car?"

"No. I just think that people will be looking at us weird anyway, and we really don't need to give them a reason to call the cops."

Grumpily, Dean does as asked, and Sam repeats the action on his side before starting the engine. It takes a little bit in the cold, but soon the car's purring underneath them. Snow lines up the sleepy road they take towards the town's centre and the second-hand store, and Sam finds himself patting over the wallet in his pocket a little uneasily. He's never had to shop for kids' clothing before. Dean has - he's done it for Sam a few times, even if most of Sam's clothes came directly down from him. Sometimes, what he had was just too worn to pass on anymore, or Sam would wear them out while John was out of town. So Dean did it. Now, however, he doesn't have to.

They park in front of the store and it seems quiet enough when they get inside. The first thing Sam does is spot a pair of shoes that fit on his brother, and he pulls Dean into the shade of a few racks of women's shirts to put them on - so far, he's only worn two layers of adult men's socks to protect his feet, and they can't go through the store like that. He'll pay for the shoes, but they've got to be on Dean for now.

"Can't we just shoplift this stuff?" Dean asks him quietly in that same, perpetually displeased voice.

Sam shakes his head.  
"Not if we can't take off. You know that. Don't risk getting caught if you can't run like hell, right?"

"I guess. This sucks. How long do you think it'll take for this to wear off?"

Dean looks at Sam hopefully, as if expecting him to tell him it'll be now or after dinner at the very least. Sam shakes his head - doesn't know what else to tell him.

"C'mon, let's just get you some clothes."

He guides them through the quiet, dusty-smelling store to whichever stall looks like it could hold some clothes for a boy about Dean's size. On the way, he notices Dean rather pawing at toys than the clothes. At first, he only dares to run his fingertips across the hood of a worn-looking 80s toy car, but in a minute he's picking up water guns and plastic dinosaurs, even a dirty-looking pony, although as he picks it up he gives Sam a quick glance and drops it right away when he notices his brother watching.

"Gross," he repeats, and wipes his hands onto his borrowed jeans. When they move forwards, however, he gives the pony one last longing look.

After some searching, they find a section mostly dedicated to children's clothing. It opens up with piles upon piles of baby clothes, but just when Sam's managed to swallow thickly, they pass that part and arrive at the next age stage. Hope lights up again.

"Hey, Dean. There's a lot of stuff here. Come look."

Dean, this time caught from trailing his thumb over the plastic mane of a toy lion, jumps and looks alarmed. Sam waves him over and stands him by the clothes.

"See anything you like?" he tries to ask, even though by now it's clear that Dean simply doesn't care - he'd probably go naked if it meant he could buy a water gun and some rubber ducks to shoot instead.

"Mm," Dean mumbles, reaching on his toes to dig into the wares.  
He pokes around a little, unenthusiastic as ever, before dropping back on his heels and shaking his head.  
"Nah."

"You didn't even try."

"I did try. They're awful. I don't want them."

"Uh, Dean. You've got to wear something."

"I know. But I don't want _these_."

Sam sighs.  
"Well, you see something else you might want to wear?" he asks.

Dean's quiet for a long while, but Sam doesn't think of finding out what he's looking at before a pained expression crosses his brother's face. When he does, Dean's already looking away - but before then, he was looking at the girls' section. Sam knows exactly why: it just looks better. The clothes are clean, colourful, well set-out, they don't look worn or unhygienic or hardened or wrinkled and they don't have any mystery stains that a washing machine couldn't get out of them. He suppresses a smile, pokes into the pile of boy clothes and tries to act cool about it when he speaks.

"Hey, look, I know you'll hate me for even suggesting, but, uh, if there's nothing here - go see the girls' section if you can find something you'd wear from there. I'll keep digging around these and pick out some stuff that I think isn't as gross as the rest of it, and then we can, I don't know, grab something else before we go, your pick."

"But it's for _girls_ ," Dean complains, even though he's already shifted towards the next tables.

"I know. Just - pick whatever, you can wear them indoors where nobody sees. We really, really got to get you some clothes for - at least a week. We don't know how long this'll take, Dean, so... please. We'll pretend you have a sister or something."

"Ugh. Fine."

And off he goes. Sam watches him out of the corner of his eyes, the eagerness with which he digs into the pile of pinks, reds, yellows, blues and greens, before finally looking down at his own pile of camo greens and greys and blacks. He finds a nice, clean, soft and relatively fresh-looking plain black tee, a comfy-feeling loose green tee with an eagle print that has faded with dignity, a light brown shirt with wolf paw prints on the chest and the WWF logo printed discreetly beside them, two pairs of jeans that don't have mystery stains but are worn enough from the legs to warrant a good price, and a black hoodie much like the one Dean already has, only in a much more fitting size for his current body type. Meanwhile, Dean's finally managed to generate an age-appropriate excitement by the other table. He's sweeping down things, spreading them out, looking them through and then throwing them back on the table, but the interesting part of it for Sam is the fact that he's even taking out things like skirts and pastel-coloured spaghetti straps as if really considering he might want to wear them one day. Quietly, he moves away from his own table, traces back towards the way they came from and discreetly slips the dirty pony into his basket. How hard can it be to get off some 30 years of greasy fingerprints off the sky-blue vinyl? It's only two dollars, anyway. If his brother wants it - his brother can have it, damn it. How many ponies he got to have when he was a kid the last time?

Gently, he covers the toy with the wolf paw print shirt and wonders if he's gone mad as he returns to Dean.

"Find anything?" he asks him, and as expected, Dean suddenly pretends he never got into his mission with any enjoyment whatsoever.

He shifts uncomfortably, tugging at the hem of a purple sleeveless... _thing_ that would reach all the way up to his knees if he wore it; it's got a rainbow-tailed shooting star printed over its chest, and a hoodie-esque pocket in the front for whatever a pre-school girl might want to carry around with her. Flowers? Candy? Suddenly it seems that Sam has never met a pre-school girl.

"Well, that looks -"

"I don't _want_ it, it's a _dress._ "

"- like it'd be warm in the motel room, if you put a long-sleeve underneath it."

Sam ignores Dean, steps forwards and picks up a thin, soft white long-sleeve with pastel stripes in the sleeves and around the hip.

"Like this? I think it'd be nice with that colour. And, uh. A pair of white leggings or something."

Dean's quiet. Really, really quiet. He turns around and huffs and walks away, leaving Sam to stand there alone. After some time of watching him poke around a large, ugly plastic dinosaur with a shut-off look on his face, Sam sighs and sweeps the dress and the shirt into the basket. It takes him a while to find a pair of leggings the size that would fit Dean, as they all seem to be for girls around the age of four or smaller, but he finally does, and sweeps them into the basket just the same.

"You'll need to try these on, you know. The boy stuff, I mean."

"Mm."

Dean's still not looking at him.

"And you can take the dinosaur if you want it. I promised you, you know."

He steals a timid glance of Sam and shakes his head.

"I don't want a toy. I'm not a real kid."

"Okay. Whatever you say."

"I'd like some candy, though."

"Sure. We can get you some candy. After you try the clothes. Come, let's do that now."

 

 

* * *

 

They buy a bag of candy, two tri-packs of budget underwear for boys in black and light grey, three two-packs of socks, and a hand-knit scarf for Sam. They also find a jacket that would fit Dean, but the price is too high.

"You'll just wear a couple shirts under the hoodie for outdoors," Sam tells him apologetically, "And borrow my scarf."

"Whatever. It's not like I'm gonna be going out anyway."

"Speaking of, um - the woman I spoke with earlier?"

"Yeah?"

"She kind of - expects you to play with her son."

Dean stops, and Sam slows down to a halt a little ahead of him. The boy looks conflicted, scared, and Sam understands him.

"Look, you're good with kids. Just entertain the boy for a couple hours and I'll rescue you," he promises.

Slowly, Dean shrugs.  
"I don't know how to do the kid thing," he says in a terrified voice, "I mean, what if he... knows."

"Knows what?"

"That I'm - I'm not a real boy. I mean, he's a _civ,_ he's not allowed to know this kind of stuff."

"Uh, Dean."  
Sam reaches out for him with a small crooked smile, tugs at his sleeve and pulls him forwards.  
"I'm pretty sure he isn't psychic. At worst he'll just think you're mature for your age. You said it yourself - he's a civilian, he doesn't know about this stuff. And he's a _kid_ , Dean. I mean, who would believe him, anyway?"

Dean nods. He's quiet until they've paid for their shoppings - it all comes just a little over 40 bucks, and Sam breathes out in relief when the card he uses gets through without a hassle. They pack up and leave the store.

"You hungry?" he asks then.

"For a double-cheese and bacon burger? Always."

Sam rolls his eyes as he starts the car.

"Was thinking Chinese, actually," he counters the smaller's excitement.

Dean thinks for a moment before shrugging again.  
"Sure," he says then.

 

* * *

 

Sam watches Dean switch into his new clothes. They eat in front of the TV again, watching whichever daytime show is on until the takeaway is gone. For dessert - with a kid in the family, it just seems like something they should have - Sam brings out cookies, two for himself and three for Dean. It's three in the afternoon: having Dean out of the way for a couple hours seems like a good idea to Sam, if he ever wants to dig into the spell.

"I think we should go deal with the kid downstairs, Dean," he suggests, trying to appear inconspicuous about it, "Get it out of the way."

Dean curls up more firmly into his cross-legged pose and makes an unclear sound.  
"I don't wanna."

"Yeah, but - look, she borrowed us clothes. She didn't seem to want money for them. So the least you can do is take the clothes back to her and play with her kid for a while. Or what, are you shy all of a sudden?"

Another unclear sound. Sam watches his brother for a moment before running his hand through his hair and patting him on the back.  
  
"Put the hoodie on. I'll come down with you and stay for a while. How's that sound?"

"Better, I guess. I mean - can we even be sure they're alright? What if they're... witches," Dean mumbles, pulling his sock between his toes and then watching it bounce back up repeatedly.

"I don't think so. Honestly, they're probably okay. But I'm gonna come check it with you, just in case."

"How long will you stick around?"

"Long enough for it to be clear for you. Then I gotta - I mean, I need to do research to get you out of this form."

Dean glances at him. He's gnawing at his lower lip with unease, and Sam wants to pull him close and hold him there until he feels better again.  
"What if there's no cure?"

"Then I hope it'll wear out. And, uh - it will, I guess. You won't be a kid forever. No one is."

"What, you mean I just have to grow up all over again?"

"Well... yeah."

"I guess that's not too bad," Dean grunts, looking back down at his toes again, "As far as curses go."

Sam smiles, but it's not an entirely comfortable smile, nor is it necessarily a happy one. As nice as the present moment is - he already misses his big brother. Waiting almost two decades for him to be back... the thought alone hurts.

"Let's go, Dean," he says gently, pulling himself up, "We can worry about this later."

Dean nods. He unknots his legs and slips down from the bed, hitting the floor with a small sound.  
"Should I put on the hoodie? I mean, does - um - you think we'll be going outside?"

"If you do," Sam tells him, putting away the takeaway boxes, "don't leave the grounds, alright?"

"No way. I don't like the idea of going - out there - like this," Dean grunts, "Not without a gun, anyway."  
He decides to pull on his hoodie anyway, just in case; a moment later they're heading down the stairs. Dean seems more comfortable with them now, and maybe it's the fact that he's at least wearing a proper pair of shoes now with a much smaller chance of slipping down. He's visibly nervous as they stand before the door, and Sam traces his fingertips down the boy's shoulder to calm him down. The door opens, and Dean tenses up, hugging the pile of borrowed clothes close to his chest.

"Hey," Sam greets the woman, who smiles tiredly back at him before turning to examine Dean instead in a brief, warm manner, "We brought back the clothes. Is Jack there? Dean's available now."

"Yeah, he's here. I hope the clothes fit alright," the woman tells Sam before turning towards Dean again. "Hey, Dean."  
She crouches down to get on his level and Dean flinches when she brushes the back of her palm across his cheek.  
"Are you a bit shy?"

"Uh," Dean tells her.

To his surprise, Sam feels his fingers wriggle and fist around the fabric of his jeans for safety. The woman huffs gently at him before getting up and gesturing them inside.

"I've got some soda if you want, but that's about it, I'm afraid," she tells them as they step inside and leave their shoes by the door.

"Don't worry about it," Sam tells her - he's spotted Jack on the floor in the midst of a scattered collection of Legos, "We just ate. Hey, Jack."

Jack looks at them, but his eyes don't stay on Sam for long. His eyes light up when he spots Dean, who snuggles closer to Sam.

"Jack, this is Dean," his mother tells him, "and -"  
She looks at Sam, raising her brows.

"Sam," Sam chuckles, "I think I never got your first name, either."

"Matilda," the woman laughs and sits down by the table exactly like the one upstairs in Sam and Dean's room.

Dean tugs at Sam's shirt.  
"This is a really, really bad idea," he hisses at his brother.

Sam kneels beside him. The moment Dean's fingers untangle from the fabric of his jeans, they charge back to hold the bundle of clothes against his chest. He looks downright terrified.

"Just go say hi to him, okay? It's not that bad. You've done this before."

"No I _haven't_ ," Dean tells him urgently, glancing at Matilda and decisively avoiding Jack who's watching him hopefully from the pile of Legos, "I've never done this."

"You have. Look, just go in there and build a castle. It can't be that hard."

Dean swallows and finally looks at Jack as Sam picks himself up and shrugs towards Matilda. He doesn't know what else to tell her. Luckily, she seems to mostly find the situation endearing: her smile is still warm and she shrugs back at him with sympathy.

"Would you like a cup of instant coffee? It tastes like crap but I still have a couple bags left that I need to get rid of," she asks him.

Sam nods, pushing Dean forwards. The boy stumbles on a few steps, places down the clothes on the nearest chair, and then very slowly makes the rest of the way to the silver-haired boy with glasses who jumps up and comes in to meet him half-way. As Sam sits down, Jack is leading Dean by the hand to the Legos - he seems starved for company, but Sam knows what it's like. There are never that many kids at motels to play with.

"So, what are you in town for?" Matilda asks him as he sits down, and he sighs with relief.

This should be an easy visit.

 


	4. The (Quite Short) List of Priorities

* * *

 

An hour and a half later, Sam slips back out of the door and locks Dean on the other side. There's nothing unusual about Matilda and Jack, and unlike his brother clearly expected, Dean seems to be having no difficulties whatsoever putting together pieces of blocks to form up whatever the two of them can imagine. After promising he'd be back in another hour, Sam doesn't have that much time for research, but before then, he has a more pressing matter to attend to. He drops his shoes by the door and heads right for the plastic bag full of kid clothes, and he takes them out, puts them where Dean's clothes usually are, but picks apart the girl clothes and leaves them on the bed just in case Dean really wants them as badly as he appeared to want them at the store. Maybe, just maybe, after playing with Jack he'll feel comfortable enough that he won't remember to feel ashamed about it - and if he does, Sam will just make some comment about forgetting the things on the bed, and that'll be it.

The last thing inside the bag is the blue pony. It has a spiralling horn and a tangled rainbow mane sticking up in the air, and a tail that looks like a cloud of puffy, dry rainbow wires pointing in every direction at once. Its ears look vaguely yellowed at the tips, and there's greyish-brown coat of filth all over its squishy body, but the paint on its eyes is intact and the star symbols over its backside seem mostly in good condition. A rub-through with a wet, soapy towel, and a combing session later... it should look just fine.

As he sets to scrubbing the toy under warm water, Sam's mind wanders. What does he really know about the curse? Only, really, that the coven used it to create valuable sacrifices out of drifters. So what are the chances the spell would be permanent? A transformation spell would already be complex and expensive - why make it more so by extending it beyond the necessary time span? How long have the victims been kept alive after abduction? How long would it take to purify them for the sacrificial rite, and are there any other conditions that have to be met? He doesn't know. Logic doesn't help him much with the questions, either; depending on the ritual, cleansing alone can take anywhere from minutes to years. He has no clue about the conditions the victim would have to meet to qualify, not without knowing the specific demon or other entity the sacrifices have been made to - every demon and every deity would wish for something different.

His biggest clue is the one he doesn't want to address. Dean himself might know: Dean, who was kept where the rest of the victims were kept, with the coven, presumably in a cell or a room or any other containing area specifically created for a sacrificial victim. Dean, who has been through the transformation - Dean, who has the mindset of a young child.

The corner of the towel Sam has rubbed the pony's shape through has turned a nasty shade of brownish black, so he turns it around and takes a fresh corner, dips it into the soap and goes back to work.

So, perhaps he can't make a counter-spell. He's no witch, and he knows of none who could help, none he would trust with the life of his vulnerable brother. The hope he has to rely on is that the spell _is_ temporary. That the purification process would take no more than a few weeks at most. Timeline giving, it can't take years; that much he knows. The victims came too frequently, and the cycle was too short. So weeks, maybe months at worst. Can they afford to sit back and wait for a year for some unknown expiration date to come? What before then? Does he put Dean to school, does he keep him in for protection? What about the relationships the boy will form during this time, like Jack, like Matilda? He can't lock Dean inside and keep him from the world. His brother is social, and craves freedom like few other things - very few other things beyond stability and family, in fact. None of that would have changed with his size. Not one.

After vigorous rubbing, the crayon stain from the pony's hoof finally fades into an orange-tinted blur. Sam keeps rubbing until the last hint of the foreign colour is gone, and the hoof is sky-blue again. He lathers the mane of rainbow nylon hair with soap and washes it off, then adds another coat and picks up his comb: he works the hair from the ends up towards the root until the soapy strings are untangled and hang heavy towards the sink's basin. Then, he sets to do the same for the tail.

It takes ages.

 

* * *

 

Sam finds Dean outdoors, his dry-feeling, throughoutly cleaned hands stuck in his pockets as he descends the stairs. He barely recognises his brother at first, with his fists full of snow and a blushy grin on his face, but he knows the way Dean throws a snowball, and he watches it land squarely on Jack's shoulder. The boy gets knocked sideways, but he's laughing, too; neither of them looks like they're anywhere near finished playing, so Sam merely waves towards Dean and slips back into Matilda's room.

"Hello?" he calls inside from the doorway, "Matilda?"

The woman perks in her chair and turns towards him, smiling again.  
"Hey. You came to pick Dean up? They should be outside."

"Yeah. Yeah, I - I saw them. They look like they get along well," he tells her, chuckling, "I - actually I was wondering, when are you guys leaving?"

"Well, we were supposed to be gone tomorrow. But there's been a complication, as there always is with my husband's work, so - in about three days," Matilda tells him, "How about you guys?"

"Uh, we're not sure yet. I'm not risking the wheels on those roads, so I guess we'll wait until, you know, the snow stops coming in like this."

Matilda nods.  
"Makes sense," she says, leaning to the table with her elbow, "Which means you'll probably stay longer than us. Can I make a suggestion?"

"Sure," Sam chuckles, smiling.

"Why wouldn't you guys come with us to the winter festival the day after tomorrow? Jack would love it, I'm sure."

"The winter festival?" Sam repeats, racking his brain for information.  
He recalls a colourful poster, but that's about the extent of it.

"Yeah. Matt is coming with us - my husband - he's off work then, and we should be leaving the next morning. But it would be a great way for the boys to say goodbye, you know. There'll be all sorts of activities, a snowman building contest and of course a ton of winter treats and hot beverages for sale, a big Christmas tree reveal later and whatever. So if you're not booked for the day, we'd love to have some company."

"Yeah," Sam finds himself saying, "Yeah, that sounds great, actually. We'd love to come. I mean, I have to check with Dean, but he, uh, seems to be enjoying himself quite a bit, so I don't think that'll be an issue."

"That's awesome. So it's a date, then?"

"Yeah, it's - yeah. We'd love that."

Matilda nods. She's still smiling when she opens up the newspaper on the table and seems to signal the end of the conversation, so Sam backs up into the doorway.

"I'm gonna pick up my brother now, so, see you guys later," he tells her, and she waves him away absently.

It's snowing again. It doesn't surprise Sam: the excuse he's making about the roads is only half-false, and the forecast says the weather won't be turning anytime soon. It's good for Christmas, and good for anyone without a driveway to shovel, but more than anything else, it's good for kids. Another pro to add on the list of things that aren't completely dreadful in the aftermath of the spell, Sam thinks as he leans onto the motel's wall to shelter from the falling snow and watches the boys chase each other around. Dean sticks his tongue out and catches a couple flakes, and he's laughing like Sam hasn't heard him laugh in - he hasn't, really, heard him laugh like that in his entire living memory. He shivers and crosses his arms over his chest, but really, warmth like the kind that has bundled up in the pit of his stomach now is hard to match, so he stays a while just watching them.

Really, things could have gone a lot worse for them.

 

* * *

 

"You gotta call someone, Sam," Dean huffs when they sit by the diner's corner table with steaming drinks and a pair of overflowing sandwiches in front of them, "About the case."

"I'm considering that," Sam tells his reflection in the window.

Colourful fairy lights twinkle as they hang from the roof of this building and every other building around it, even stretching across the road from street lamp to street lamp, and Sam finds himself rather watching them than dealing with this conversation.

"Kids are gonna die if you don't."

It sounds twice as awful delivered in the voice of a young child. Finally, Sam peers at Dean and nods slowly.

"I'm just," he starts, then falls quiet, sipping his hot chocolate to drown the unease in his guts, "I don't - with you like this, Dean, I have to think of us first. You know that. If they smell betrayal, how am I supposed to protect you?"

Unease and uncertainty flash over Dean's features. He's still scared of the witches. Scared to death, and for a good reason. He braces himself quickly, however.  
"You can't delay it just because. They told you not to chase them, or else. They told you to choose between fetching me and fetching them. So, you've held your end. They didn't tell you not to call Garth or whoever to get someone else on the case."

"How can we be sure that 'someone else' can handle them?"

" _We_ couldn't handle them, because I suck. Someone else might have better luck with everything we know about them, Sam."

"You don't suck."

"I did suck, and I paid for it. Look at me. I'm wearing size XXS again."

A smile tugs at Sam's mouth. He suppresses it, bites into his sandwich and leans back, eyes turning back towards the Christmas lights as if he's unable to resist the charm.  
"I can't risk it, Dean. Not yet. Not before we know how to fix this."

"We can't wait, either. Look, Sam. I'm a kid, right? You want to protect me. But I'm a kid who's lived to be nearly forty years old. There are real kids out there who haven't lived up to seven yet, who haven't turned _five_ , and these witches will go after them if they get the chance. Or they'll pick up another drifter who isn't half my age."

He sounds serious, but Sam sees how pale he's fallen, and the subtle shivers shaking him from head to toe. Sighing, he reaches his hand across the table and picks the wrist of Dean's sleeve between his thumb and his index finger, rubbing it as if to pet it.  
"Dean, I know it's not possible for you to just drop the subject, but please - drop the subject. You're not - you - ugh. Look, you're maybe, at most, seven years old right now. Okay? You can't - you can't keep thinking about this. It's too much."

Dean tenses, but Sam spots relief on his features, too. He's pushing himself so hard to be _himself_ , to be an adult despite the fact that nothing about his current state would allow him to be that. He's talking, thinking subjects that have to shake him to his core, but he's trying because Dean Winchester would not and has not ever stopped doing everything that he can to save everyone he can. Not since the fire.

The last thing he would allow is for some other kid to live through what he's lived through.

"I've got this, Dean," Sam tells him firmly but patiently, "Trust me. I'm not going to just let them go. I'm _not_. But we have to be careful, and right now, my priority is you, us, so that we can get back on the road and do what we do best together. So I'm gonna keep you safe, first and foremost, until you can protect yourself again. It's not now. It might not be tomorrow, either. But it's gonna be sooner rather than later, and I promise you, I'll do my everything to make sure no one else has to suffer."

Slowly, Dean nods. He lowers his gaze to his sandwich, opens it and peers at its mayonnaise-gooey insides as Sam releases his hand again. They eat in silence for a couple more minutes before Sam decides it's time to change the subject.

"So, uh. You didn't have a horrible time with Jack, right?"

"He was pretty cool," Dean admits.

"Good. Because, look, his mom asked if we'd like to join them the day after tomorrow for the winter festival."

Dean raises his eyes from the sandwich, picks it up and stuffs a big bite in his mouth.

"The what?" he asks with his cheeks puffy again.

Sam waits for him to swallow.  
"The winter festival," he says then, shrugging, "Apparently it's a thing that's going to happen. There's food, and, uh, snowman building. I don't know. But I thought it might be - since we're probably going to be doing nothing for a while, anyway. I thought we should go."

"Sure," Dean tells him and stuffs his mouth again.

Sam huffs and drinks some hot chocolate.

"We're... really going?" Dean asks suddenly as if unsure if the previous arrangements weren't made seriously enough, and he looks his age now; worried, though. Almost vibrating with some energy that Sam can't really decipher - it's either excitement or anxiety. Perhaps both.

"Yeah, I thought we would. What'dya think?"

Dean swallows thickly. He downs a bunch from his hot chocolate, drops the cup back on the table so that some drops jump out of it, and he pulls his hoodie down between his legs where he also nests his both fists, invisible to Sam across the table. He seems quite wide-eyed when he looks at Sam, and it takes him a while to speak.

"Never been to a winter festival."

"Sure you have."

"No. I mean. Like this. Like. I've been big. Before. I've been big when we've gone. I haven't done any of the _stuff_ they do there."

Sam watches him with a crooked smile. Yep, it's definitely excitement.  
"You always eat a ton," he reminds Dean, "so you've done something."

Dean ignores him.  
"Can we do the snowman thing?" he asks timidly but with energy sparkling out of each word.

His eyes follow Sam's shrug up and down.

"I don't see why not," Sam promises, and Dean lights up like the Christmas lights outside.

 

* * *

 

 

* * *

 

They walk back from the diner, and they're mostly quiet the whole way. Snowflakes are still falling as thick and heavy as before, and the air is full of them, so full that the light from the street lamps shines everywhere. It's like a hundred low-hanging suns illuminating the world, and the shadows are momentarily banished - with them, it seems, the shadows lurking inside the brothers have also gone away. For those fifteen minutes they walk, with Dean hopping and kicking about and Sam following him while keeping a firm eye on him and whatever traffic dares to challenge the weather, things are good.

They climb up the stairs back towards their room and Sam can sense the exhaustion in his brother - in this small, young version of his big brother who still feels so familiar and unfamiliar at once to him. He fights through another crushing wave of affection towards the boy as he digs out his keys, and he barely stops himself from grabbing Dean and hugging him tight the moment they get inside. Dean's slow when he pulls off his hoodie: it drags up his shirt underneath, leaving his belly exposed for a moment before the cloth falls back over it. He adjusts his jeans absently as he turns for the bed, eyes upon the pile of clothes and the pony Sam's left on the bed. A spark of nervousness lights up inside Sam, although he can't say exactly why he would feel that way. As Dean approaches the pile hesitantly, Sam takes a seat by the table and follows the situation: he doesn't know what to say, or if he should say anything at all, so he doesn't.

Dean can make his own choices.

"What's that?" Dean asks, stopping near Sam's bed.  
He trails his fingertips over the blanket and turns towards Sam with a questioning expression.

Sam shrugs.  
"Your stuff from the store?"

"No, I mean, the - pony."

"Oh. Yeah. I don't know, I was walking around looking for clothes while you were digging into the girl pile and I saw it was only a couple dollars, so I put it in. I don't know why. Maybe because we never had a toy like that when we were kids."

"Why's it on my bed?"

Sam shrugs again. This time, he doesn't offer a white lie, but instead turns away and pulls up his laptop. It's warm after charging there for an hour or so while they've been out, and whirrs softly as he turns the power on. From the corner of his eyes, he sees Dean move on again: he approaches his bed like afraid Sam's going to interrupt him, as if there's a hook in his back keeping him from going forwards, but Sam's set on not making a sound or even remotely appearing like he might care about whatever Dean's doing, and soon enough Dean snatches the pony from on top of the pile and hides it in his grip. He shuffles the clothes anxiously for a moment before moving them on Sam's bed instead.

"I'm taking a shower," he announces uncertainly, still hiding the pony from Sam's view.

Sam glances at him and hmm-mms, then turns back towards his computer and opens up the tabs he's left open there. He closes a few right away, knowing they're not helpful, and picks the one he has the most hope for instead: on the other side of the room, Dean disappears inside the shower. When he's gone, Sam finally dares to raise his head and he looks at the closed door - hears the lock turn - and smiles. Seems like he made the right choice.

Some soft knocks describe the process of Dean stripping out of his clothes, and when the shower turns on, Sam pulls himself up from his chair again and moves the folded clothes from his bed to the chair. Dean can wear them later, if he dares; if not, they can sit there, out of the way. He sits back to his research and spends a good eight minutes reading the page before a mumbling voice creeps into his consciousness and distracts him from it. Confused, he lifts his gaze again; he looks around, dumbly expecting the TV to be on or for the sound to echo from the adjacent rooms, but soon he realises neither of those are the source. It's Dean, talking in the shower.

Quietly, Sam stands up again. He avoids scraping the floor with the chair and sneaks as silently to the paper-thin wall separating the shower from the rest of the room, and quite shamelessly turns his ear towards it to make sense of the sounds. It takes him a moment to adjust to the volume and start picking up the ends and beginnings of the words Dean's speaking, but when he does, he closes his eyes and feels a weird tingling inside his chest that he can't quite place nor reason with.

"Come on, Star. We have to find out what's on the mountain," Dean says quietly.

There's a pause, and then he answers himself in quite a different, higher voice; "I'm scared."

"Why are you scared?" he asks, and the other voice answers; "The mountain is so high."

"Look, I'll help you. Walk on my arm and get on my shoulder. Ready? Mm-hmm. Okay, here we go. I'll lift you up so you can go investigate. What do you see? A... a potion. There's a potion."

A pause.

"What does the potion look like, Star?"

"I don't like it."

"Why don't you like it?"

"It looks bad. I don't want to touch it."

"It's alright. You don't have to. Come back to the waterfall with me. Let's leave the potion there."

Knocking sounds.

"You should wash your hair before the rainbow fades. Let me do it. Then I'll wash mine."

Sam, swallowing something of a shaky laugh, draws back from the wall. He hovers there for a moment before moving back a few steps, and he grabs the remote and turns on the TV to drown out the mumbling voices. He gets another 10 minutes of research in before Dean finally appears out of the bathroom, rubbing a towel into his hair with one hand and holding the pony in the other, apparently having completely forgotten to hide it from Sam. He looks around, the towel hanging over his head like a veil, until he spots the clothes on the chair and goes for them. The towel falls behind him on the floor, and Sam makes a sound that startles Dean as he's about to reach for the clothes. He looks scared, as if caught from the act of stealing, but Sam doesn't look at him in the hopes of that making him feel less self-conscious about it all.

"Hang the towel to dry," he tells the laptop screen.

"Oh. Alright."  
There's relief in Dean's voice. He puts on his underwear, prods at the mess on the chair and then once again decides to steer clear of it: instead, he heads for his bag, digs out a much too large t-shirt out of it, and pulls it on.  
  
"Can we watch a movie?"

Sam feels heavy as he spins around on his chair, and his eyes sting a bit as he faces the room and glances idly towards the TV screen. He considers it for a short while before nodding; it's not like he's going to get anything else done with Dean constantly moving about.

"My pick," he names his terms, knowing what kinds of movies Dean loves and has always chased after, and knowing that it's exactly the kind of a movie that'd drive a kid's imagination nuts after the lights go out.

A bitter expression flashes across Dean's features before he shrugs and seats himself onto the end of his bed. Still holding the pony, he swiftly disappears inside a blanket cocoon as Sam moves from his chair to the bed next to Dean's.

"Just don't pick anything stupid," Dean reminds him as he picks up the remote once more to search through the channels for something worthwhile.

A crooked smile crosses his lips but he doesn't pay Dean any attention; right now, what Dean considers  _stupid_ is exactly the kind of a thing his brains are prepared for, and not much else.

 _Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone_ will do just fine.

 


	5. Wishlist

* * *

 

Dean moves into Sam's bed by the time it's Christmas in Hogwarts, and he curls up beside his brother and starts dozing off almost right away. Sometimes Sam sees the screen reflect from his barely open, watery eyes, but mostly he's breathing deep and quiet as he naps against Sam. By Ron's sacrifice at the end of the movie, his head is on Sam's lap, and Sam's resting his arm over his brother's steadily rising and falling side, and he doesn't wake up again before the movie's over and Sam nudges him to move to the side so he can get his head on the pillow. Dean's arm moves over his belly and stays there as the boy falls asleep again without ever properly waking up at all, and a peculiar silence falls into the room, full of the sounds of Dean breathing while Sam's own mind remains completely, utterly quiet. He watches the lights of the passing cars rush across the ceiling every now and then and thinks of nothing as his own eyes slowly start closing for longer and longer periods of time, and when he falls asleep, it comes seamlessly, not quite unexpectedly but via such a smooth transition that he's both perfectly aware of it coming and then completely unaware of finally succumbing to it when it happens.

He dreams of strange things: potions hidden in the bosoms of frozen mountains, shadows lurking just behind the window of a log cabin somewhere far, far away from the motel, and a pathway leading up to a dark cave with the shadows dancing on the walls, created by blood-red candles illuminating malformed shapes that he can't quite see clearly no matter how hard he tries. He dreams of a faceless girl kneeling in the corner of a medieval-looking cell with a half-eaten slice of dry bread on the stone floor beside her, and a flower that blooms in the middle of that cell that illuminates its walls and the girl herself. She cowers by the wall for a long time without moving, just sobbing, before she turns her face back towards Sam, standing by the open door of the cell, and pushes back her long, golden curls, and she's Jessica Moore for just a fleeting moment before the dream fades to black and Sam opens his eyes again to the pale light of a new morning.

Just like the day before, Dean's still asleep; Sam watches him for a moment and tries to make sense of the things his brain fed him in the night, but he doesn't come to much of a conclusion on that front. When he gets up and starts dressing, however, he realises that the thought of the potion sticks with him.

A potion that the pony was afraid to touch, but feared she would have to anyway.

Was that just a child's imagination transforming the bottle of soap into something more, or was there a clue hidden in Dean's mutterings?

Gently, Sam shakes the boy awake.

"Breakfast," he tells him, "Do you want me to bring it in or do you want to eat it at the diner?"

Dean can barely keep his eyes open as he looks at Sam, and his focus seems to fade in and out. Then, slowly, he shakes his head and grips the pillow with his fist - and he's still holding the pony with his other hand.

"Bring it here," he mutters, and Sam pulls the blanket over his shoulder.

"I'll be back in a minute," he promises.

 

* * *

 

Sam scoops Dean up from the bed when he gets back, the bag containing their breakfast on the bed beside them and the other bag, which holds everything they'll need for a couple days more, sitting on the table beside the window. He buries his face in Dean's hair for a moment, breathing in his sleepy scent as Dean wriggles in his grip, warm against him and poking his limbs everywhere to get into a better pose. He yawns and grips Sam's shirt, rubs his face against his chest and settles there to wake up: he's in no hurry, and Sam's thankful for that.

"What'dya ge'?" Dean asks him, the words barely apart from each other and mumbled so indistinctively that if Sam hadn't expected them, he wouldn't have understood them.

"Scrambled eggs and toast," he lists, "some coffee for me and more juice for you. Brought a whole carton this time so we won't run out so fast."

"Let me go."

Dean fights himself free and crawls sluggishly to the bag. He sits before it cross-legged and digs in, bringing out the boxes inside which the food should still be hot. He peeks into one and then the other, and makes his decision based on some factor that all but evades Sam - the meals are identical as far as he's concerned. The toast is slightly colder than he'd prefer, but it crunches nicely in contrast to the soft scrambled eggs, and overall, it's not a bad breakfast. Dean fills two cups of orange juice before discarding the carton, which falls over on the bed but thankfull spills nothing. They're both still sleepy and slow, and in the warmth of the motel room, it's easy to be so. Sam's left the curtains open and they both watch the snow fall: outside, a noisy snow plow is working desperately to keep the roads open.

"What happens if I stay this way?" Dean finally asks, his voice quiet and uncertain.  
He doesn't look at Sam, but rather keeps his eyes firmly upon the window and pretends to concentrate on his toast, which he gnaws at like an overgrown rat holding it with his both hands and barely leaving marks where his teeth pick at the crust.

"I don't know. I haven't thought that far yet. I'd like to think that this is temporary. But really, you wanna talk about it?"

"I don't know. I just - don't like not knowing."

Sam nods.  
"Well," he starts with half a sigh, "I guess we find a permanent place. We can't stay in motels like Dad had us do when we were growing up. I don't want that. And no hunting, because you need me around. So - early retirement?"

Dean shifts uncomfortably.

"Anyway, I should roll you back in school to avoid attracting any attention."

They're both quiet for a moment before Dean suddenly stuffs his mouth with toast and looks at Sam directly.  
"Would you go back to school, too?" he asks.

"I don't know," Sam says - and he's honest. The thought hasn't occurred to him; he hasn't let himself plan that future yet. "I think I'd rather work some jobs. I can't really concentrate on studies if I have to support us. But maybe, I guess. I mean, it depends on a lot of things, how - how you'll adjust, if I can get the money for school and us, how much time I'd need to take to pass, things like that. I haven't thought about it, really. I kinda - I expect the spell to wear off."

"But can you be sure?"

"No," Sam says slowly, "I can't. But it's been, what, three days? I'd give it a month before I start worrying about it. Before we start looking for a place, anyway. And I'll still be on the lookout for something to revert it with. Dean, seriously - don't worry about it. Just concentrate on resting up, on recovering. You've got your hands full right now, let me take care of the rest, okay?"

Dean makes a face before tuning back to his toast. It's gone by the time he speaks next.  
"I don't like not knowing what happens next," he says then.

"I know. Me neither. But this isn't that scary, Dean. I mean, we're both - we're both fine, right? We've been through worse. Nothing's really after us right now. We can use a small break."

"But there are people out there, dying," Dean reminds him, his eyes sharp as he looks back at Sam with challenge.

Sam nods.  
"I know. I know that, Dean."

He sips his coffee before continuing.

"But you know," he says then, "You know this, because - it's something we've had to face before. We _can't_ save everybody. And sometimes, things happen, things that - make it impossible to carry on the way we used to. Things change, Dean. You can't hunt in the body of a child. I wouldn't let you, I'd rather tie you up than let you go anywhere near danger like this, and you know that. You would have done the same for me when I was your - when I was that age. You kept the secret from me even though _you_ knew it the whole time, even though it meant you had to carry it all by yourself, and my safety was - it was on you, right? And you were just a kid then, too, Dean. You didn't need that, but you had to protect me. So now it's my turn to protect you, and I'm - I'm not gonna let anything hurt you. Which means I have to stay, too. I'm everything you've got right now."

"I don't want to be a burden."

Sam watches Dean quietly for a while before nudging his cheek gently.  
"And you aren't," he tells him, "I'm happy to be here with you, no matter what it takes."

 

* * *

 

For almost an hour and a half, Dean sits by the TV without so much as making a sound, eyes glued to the cartoon marathon Sam left on as if by accident. It buys him enough time to have a somewhat meaningful conversation with a witch through an anonymous email address: with caution, he describes the situation to her and promises compensation for any help she can provide. At first, she's unwilling, and Sam has a feeling she knows exactly what has landed him in this situation - aiding him could potentially be dangerous, should her identity be revealed. The coven might have their ways of figuring that out, but Sam assures her they're not looking for her help in a hunt: they just want to reverse the spell.

The conversation drags onwards still when there's a knock on the door that nearly sends Sam jumping out of his skin altogether. Dean lifts his head, appearing vaguely surprised that something has changed, and his gaze follows Sam to the bed where he draws his handgun and hides it underneath his flannel before moving to open the door.

Behind it stands Jack from downstairs. He's holding a red bucket containing a yellow plastic shovel, and he avoids looking at Sam in favour of peering past him to find Dean from inside.

"Can Dean come out?" he asks, and Sam feels every muscle in his body suddenly relax as if a huge weight has come off of his shoulders.

Dean's already hopping there, pulling on his jeans on the way to the door. He pushes past Sam and almost gets out by the time Sam grabs him by the shoulder and hands him his hoodie.

"Don't go anywhere without telling me first," he reminds Dean.

"Like where?" Dean asks, shrugging off Sam's hand in wounded fashion.

"Like anywhere," Sam huffs, "Downstairs to Jack's, behind the motel, anywhere. Let me know where you are, alright?"

"Whatever."

"I'm serious, Dean."

"I _will_ , just let me go, alright?"

And with that, the boys take off. Sam moves out and leans over the railing to see where they settle: it seems the plan for the day is to make cakes or castles out of snow between the reception and the parking lot, and he leaves them to it, returning indoors. It takes a few minutes for the witch to reply to his next message.

 _Try this,_ she writes him. There's a document attached to the email, and Sam opens it: it contains a list of ingredients and a spell in old English. It seems to mix elements from pagan healing rituals with a hint of magic tracing back to early Christian rites, and while many of the ingredients are hard to find, all in all nothing about it seems particularly dangerous.

 _Thank you_ , he tells her in return and sends her a bunch of cash in reward, feeling the drain of resources as a twist in his gut. Next, he sends the spell to a couple select allies with a better understanding of spellwork and traditional magic, hoping to get feedback on the spell's origin, safety and, most importantly, its potential. He adds nothing about Dean or his condition: the fewer people know about their vulnerability, the better. They've got enemies in many places, and friends have betrayed them before.

 _You're paranoid,_ Sam tells himself as he closes the laptop and leans back in his chair. Still, a moment later he finds himself standing on the porch again with his jacket and his scarf on, hands balled under his arms for warmth and his eyes keenly upon his brother and his playmate. They've built what looks like a nest for themselves, and on its edge stands a funny-looking, crooked castle with a hole for a door and couple depressions in the shapes of a child's fingers for windows.

Dean would need a pair of gloves for the winter festival, Sam realises and leans his head down into his arms. He can feel the still falling snowflakes settle in his hair as he breathes in the chilly air.

 

* * *

 

They buy a pair of knit gloves from a kids' clothes store, then head for more hot chocolate in the diner. Dean has a lot to tell Sam, and not one of his subjects has anything to do with hunting, witchcraft or what he's been through. He's excited about the snow, and all of a sudden he's noticing things that they've taken for granted for years: the chains of colourful lights in every window and around every porch, the small fluffy dogs walking by, the prints their shoes leave in the ever thickening snow. And then he's talking about Christmas - first indirectly, then directly.

"I know you _hate_ Christmas," he says in a judgemental voice, "but I want to have one this year. Last time I had one I was dying. Can't we have a Christmas without burying someone?"

"Uh," Sam tells him - Dean doesn't seem to expect him to answer to much of what he's saying, anyway.

"Because I want a proper tree. I want to decorate it, too. I want - I want lights and tinsels and stuff. And presents. That's important."

"Mm."

"I want to sleep in and I want to wake up late and have gingerbread for breakfast and candles and everything."

"Candles for breakfast?"

"No. Stupid."

"Right. Candles. Sure."

"Do they still air those horrible movies on Christmas? The same ones they did all the way back when we were kids?"

"Probably. I mean, I think so."

"Yeah. We should watch those, too. Just because."

"Right."

"And there should be fireworks on New Year's."

"Dean -"

"Don't Dean me, Sam. I want this. Why can't I want normal things? You want normal things all the time but whenever I want normal things you act like I'm simple or something."

Sam suppresses a smile as he looks at Dean. He's quiet for a while as Dean stares at him angrily, ready to have a fight over this, but Sam's not about to.

"Sure," he says then, "We can have a Christmas. You're right, we haven't had one - since forever ago. We can't afford much and I don't think we can get a tree or anything, but we can go see the one in town, wherever we are. You can have gingerbread for breakfast. And candles. Whatever you like. I don't - really mind."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

"Movies, too?"

"The bad movies, too. Sure."

Dean nods slowly, as if uncertain if he should trust Sam.  
"Why are you so nice to me?" he asks then, "Is it because I'm a kid?"

"I'm just tired of arguing. I don't - I don't _like_ Christmas, and I never will, but it's - I mean, why not? Once a decade, we can have a Christmas, it's not like it'll kill me. I have to live with it anyway, because everyone else has one."

"I've been telling you that for years."

Sam sniffs argumentatively.  
"No, you haven't," he grimaces.

"Well, no, but I've wanted to. I just didn't bother with it because I know you're such a Grinch."

"Well, you aren't wrong."

"Yeah. I'm not."

Dean still looks like he wants a fight, but Sam looks away from him and sips his hot chocolate instead. Before this, he hasn't had hot chocolate in years - maybe a full decade or more. Now, he's already growing tired of the taste, but Dean doesn't seem to have that problem. He has a light chocolate moustache stuck in the fine, colourless hair decorating his upper lip: the hair itself only shows against the darker background.

"Did you know polar bears have black skin, Sam?"

"What?"

Dean shrugs.  
"I just heard it. I think it's kinda cool."

Sam chuckles.  
"Alright."

 

* * *

 

"Sammy."

"Mm?"

They're just about to cross the street, but Dean's suddenly not there anymore. Sam spins around and watches him latch onto a craft store window, sticky palms greasing up the display.

"What now?"

Dean breathes a puff of white frost onto the glass, then turns around briefly.  
"I want something from there."

"Huh? What could you possibly want from a craft store?"

"Stuff."

"Yeah, alright, but - why?"

"Just 'cause. Come, let's at least take a look, please?"

Sam hesitates. The payment to the witch still burns at his pockets, but Dean's got money, too - and he doubts that Dean, in his current state, will object to Sam drawing out the balance to his own pockets. It all comes back to him, anyway.

"Alright, but we're on a strict budget, so - we'll just look around, okay?"

"Mm."

Dean latches onto Sam's sleeve and drags him in. The craft store smells pleasant: of fresh stacks of paper, cardboard, scented candles and a whiff of ink. It's the kind of a scent that Sam loves, what he'd wish his environment always smelled like. It's rarely the kind of a place that Dean would want to hang around in, however; it reminds Sam of a library, just without the scents of old books and warm printers. He follows Dean closely, unsure what to expect of him, but Dean seems very determined to find something he's already imagined in his head. They take a few turns while the old woman with platinum hair examines them from over her thick glasses with colourless frames and the counter in front of her. She seems fond of Dean as he hunts after something through her store, but says nothing; she nods briefly with a polite smile when Sam's eyes meet hers.

"This," Dean says all of a sudden, dropping onto his knees and pulling out a big sketchbook from one of the shelves.

He hands it to Sam, who takes it while cautiously searching for the price - it's $5.60, and he swallows a little thickly while tucking the book under his arm.

"Dean, remember the budget."

"Yeah, yeah, just one thing more."

The continue the hunt for a little while longer before Dean spots a pack of coloured pencils. He goes for the biggest, but Sam puts it right back into the shelf: it costs almost 25 dollars.

"Something a bit less expensive, please."

"This one?" Dean says hesitantly, picking a smaller one off the shelf, "How much is it? Four - four thirty... five."

"Yeah, that's..." Sam begins, but his words fade out and the sentence ends with a stunned chuckle.  
Yeah, Dean really can't read.  
"That's right, Dean. We can take that."

"Can we buy a pencil?"

"We have a pencil, Dean. And an ink pen, if you'll need one."

"Oh. Right. Yeah. How about a sharpener? And an eraser?"

"We have... we have an eraser. But a sharpener's probably a good idea, yeah."

Sam looks around, then spots a box of sharpeners nearby; he takes the one under a dollar, runs his finger along the textured, cold metal side of it, and places it on top of the pack of coloured pencils in his hand.

"All done?" he asks a little tiredly, but smiling; Dean nods at him and walks him to the clerk, still holding his sleeve.

"We'll buy these," he announces and starts taking things from Sam's hands to place them all in a pile on the table. Last, he wrestles the sharpener out of Sam's hand and plops it on top of the rest like a cherry on a cupcake, "It'll be - hm. How much is the notebook?"

"It's $5.60," Sam tells him, "and the sharpener was $0.60."

"So... it's... How much is it?" Dean asks the woman, who's smiling at him ever more widely as she rings up the items, "Let me see the receipt!"

Sam bags the sketchbook, the pencils and the sharpener while Dean examines the receipt enthusiastically with the help of the woman - their eyes meet again, and she winks at him. The snowfall outside has momentarily ceased when they finally exit the craft store to the tune of a cheerful bell that Sam barely noticed when they entered, his mind completely elsewhere at the time. Now, however, he's holding Dean's hand and Dean doesn't even seem to notice.

"Can you draw with me?" Dean asks, "When we get back to the room."

"I'm not - much of an artist, Dean, you know that. You make fun of me constantly because of it."

"Nah. I don't mind."

"You really want that?"

"Yeah. Besides, you're still my little brother. You're supposed to do this stuff with me."

"What _stuff_ am I supposed to do with you, Dean?" Sam asks, grinning as they cross the road.

"This stuff. Whatever I tell you to," Dean replies casually, but he's distracted by something; it doesn't even surprise Sam anymore.

It takes a while before Dean registers his existence again, and the motel is already within Sam's line of sight by the time it happens.

"Is this weird?" the boy asks him concernedly.

"Is what weird?"

"This. Me - ugh. I don't... I mean, I... I can - I don't know. I'm not really myself. I... just want to do this nice stuff and not worry all the time. I'm..."

Dean stops; his small shoes sink into the snow and he wipes his nose with the back of his hand, looking away. Sam stops, but when Dean avoids his gaze, he drops on his knees to get the eye contact back. Dean's still wary when he finally looks back at Sam.

"I'm really scared, Sam," he says very quietly, almost whispering, "and I wanna forget about it. About everything."

A shadow moves over Sam's features - he can feel it pass, but he shakes it by force as he reaches for Dean's shoulder and holds it firmly with his big hand.

"You can forget about it," he tells him, "Nothing's gonna hurt you, Dean. We're alright. Things are good right now. We're just resting up and recovering, alright? So you do - whatever you gotta do to get there. There's nothing you have to do or think about before you're ready for it, we don't - need to worry about that scary stuff all the time. I can draw with you today, and then we can do whatever else you wanna do. It's alright. I'm here, Dean. I'm right here and I won't let anything bad happen to us."

"But what if you can't help it?" Dean asks him, his gloved hands fisting by his sides.

Sam puts down the bag on the snowy, soft ground and presses his warm palm over Dean's cheek.

"Nothing's gonna hurt us, Dean. We're safe here. Everything's alright."

"You sure about that?"

"Absolutely," Sam tells him in a confident voice and brushes his hand through his brother's frosty hair with a small, concerned smile on his lips, "C'mon, let's get inside. I bought some snacks for us to eat while you were sleeping and I think we could start with something sweet."

 


	6. The Winter Festival

* * *

 

The wind picks up when they slip back indoors, and it howls and whistles through the roof as Sam picks a bag of gummy bears and throws it on the bed. They form a big nest out of pillows and blankets, in the midst of which they curl up together with the large sketchbook in the middle and pencils and ink pens and erasers and candy scattered between and all over them. Before settling in, they turn on the radio; it plays mostly cheesy Christmas music this close to the holidays, but neither of them really seems to mind it, and it falls into the background as they settle to practice whatever modest art skills they've got. And it's fun: Sam finds himself slipping into a relaxed, cheerful zone right with his brother, and they fill up page after page with colourful yet rather horrific stick figures and, in Sam's case, attempts at something a bit more than that. They draw the things that they know - wendigos, hellhounds, angels, demons - and then some things that they don't, like a red giraffe, a blue bear and an orange and brown fox. They draw houses, and Dean draws people that they've known: he sketches out the stick figure of Bobby Singer, of Mary and John, of himself and Sam, and adds a cat for good measure even though they've never had one. He draws Jess as he remembers her, and Sam colours in her hair; she looks a lot like Mary, and he wonders if that's a coincidence. They draw guns together, a bag of salt and some holy water. Dean attempts to draw a crucifix but ends up scribbling over it when he doesn't quite know how to make it look the way he wants it. In the adjacent room, a man sneezes loudly, making Dean grin idly at his paper.

Their sketching turns into chewing gummy bears and staring out the window; a while later, Dean slides off the bed and goes looking for his pony. He finds it, holds it, turns off the radio and turns on the TV instead, and they watch the news together for a while before Sam changes the channel back to cartoons. They have some juice together while the afternoon fades into early evening, and when the last of the light outside has died out, they go out for dinner.

 

* * *

 

Sam's lurched over and stares at the screen of his laptop from a much too close proximity when Dean appears from nowhere and tugs at his sleeve again. The kid's wearing his baggy night shirt, and by now Sam knows to expect it. The collar of it hangs over Dean's small shoulder but it doesn't seem to concern him at all.

"Could you read to me?" Dean asks, and he's got that same concerned, timid tone in his voice, as if expecting Sam to laugh at him.

For a moment, Sam lets the words sink in - he quite enjoys them. There's something throughoutly comforting in them, like some puzzle piece falling into place but he doesn't know which picture it's forming yet, but when the anxiety on Dean's features grows, he smiles at him and nods to drive it away.

"Of course," he says, "What'd you like?"

"I don't know. Just - something. You got... you've got books on the tablet."

A library of ebook titles flashes across Sam's mind's vision and he nods again, this time more slowly.  
"I think I know just the one, actually," he tells Dean and stands up.

They get back into the messy bed-nest, and Sam helps Dean curl up into a big blanket burrito all over again. When Dean's all settled, Sam offers him the pony from the foot end of the bed, and he grasps for it in a calm, content way that seems and feels so soft that Sam has to close his eyes for a moment to pull himself back together. Then he takes up his tablet and looks up the Chronicles of Narnia: he's read the books before as a child, but the story has mostly slipped off his mind since. The digital edition has sat on his tablet for a good long while without ever finding its right time and place, but this is it, he's sure of it. Maybe it's been waiting for this very moment all those months that Sam felt desperate to find a moment for it.

He settles against the headboard and rests the tablet over his legs, then places one hand over Dean before starting to read. Dean's eyes glass over quickly, and Sam wonders if he's ever seen him that relaxed and concentrated on anything as he keeps reading the first chapter at a steady, slow pace.

"I like this story," Dean mumbles once when Sam's taking a breath between the paragraphs, and he's smiling as he closes his eyes, "Please keep reading..."

And Sam keeps going. He reads about the accidental discovery of the world beyond the wardrobe when Dean dozes off, and keeps going for a couple minutes after being fairly certain that his big brother is asleep. When he stops, Dean makes no sound; he's breathing slowly and quietly beside Sam, and doesn't budge when Sam places the tablet on the bedside table and slips under the covers.

He wakes up not long after to an unfamiliar sound. The only light in the room comes through the curtain-covered window, and it's still pitch black dark outside and inside if not for the yellow glow of the street lights and the white lights of the passing cars a bit further away beyond the parking lot, or the dim buzzing of the lights on the porch shining from the room numbers by each door. His consciousness grows in stages, but those stages come in rushed and leave him dizzy when he pulls himself up and reaches for Dean. Dean's crying: his breathing's hitching and he's letting out small, high sounds that sound so terrified that Sam's heart races from listening to them even though he sees or hears no danger whatsoever. To his surprise, Dean kicks when he tries to hold him. The boy stumbles out of bed, crying harder now, and tries to hide under the table - Sam follows him slowly, making his every move obvious and non-threatening, as he reaches for the reading light and turns it on.

Dean's pale. He's shaking badly even as he holds his knees against his chest, and his hair sticks in every direction above his wide, terrified eyes. He's looking around and clutching himself as if trying to protect himself from something invisible. There's blush all over his face and his ears, but the rest of his body seems drained of colour.

"Dean. Dean, hey," Sam calls him gently, crouching on the carpet between the beds and the table.  
He reaches his hand, palm up, and holds it between them, but Dean shuffles further away from him with a choked, hiccup-like sound.  
"Dean, it's okay. Tell me what's wrong."

"D-don't come," Dean utters, "Don't - I don't wanna - I wanna be alone. I wanna be alone. I don't wanna - don't - don't say anything, they'll - th-they'll hear, they'll hear us."

"What'll hear us? Dean. Please."  
Sam's speaking quieter now, if only to convince Dean to keep communicating.  
"There's no one here, Dean. Just us. You're safe. Things are okay."

"Th-the hounds. The - the hounds. They'll... they'll come."

"The...?" Sam starts, but a breath escapes him after the first word when he understands.  
He smiles painedly and crawls an inch or two closer to Dean while he's not looking, but the boy's eyes snap right back onto him when he does, so he stops again.

"Dean, listen to me."

"Th-they're comin'. I heard 'em. I heard 'em. The-they'll hear me, too. They'll come. They'll - they'll take me back to hell."

Dean jumps when the howling carries on, and Sam can hear it too. He, however, knows exactly what it is.

"No, Dean - look," he says calmly, reaching out for his brother again, "it's just a dog. Just a regular old dog. Probably saw a fox or a deer or something. Nothing's coming for you."

Dean shudders and presses against the radiator under the table. Sam hopes it's not too hot, but he doesn't see the boy flinching at contact.

"Can I come there, Dean? We can sit under there for a bit until you feel better," he promises.

They watch one another, Dean's eyes slowly growing tired again, until the kid nods.  
"Bring a blanket," he pleads faintly.

Sam smiles and turns around.  
"I'll bring three," he says and picks up their blankets from the bed and the comforter that belongs on his own bed, "Scoot."

Dean shuffles to the side as Sam drops the blankets onto the floor before him. He lifts his laptop aside, puts it on the chair under the table, and spreads the comforter over the table: it forms a comfy little cave underneath, and Dean lets out a quiet sound of relief. He keeps adjusting the comforter and the chairs until there's a small opening in the front but a solid blanket-wall on every other side, and then he grabs his phone and the two blankets plus as many pillows as fit under his arm, gets on his knees and crawls inside with them all.

"I promise that no dog or any kind of a hound will ever find us in here," he announces as he sets his phone with the flashlight on in the corner and starts padding the floor with blankets and pillows, and Dean, still trembling, sets out to help him.

They work on their nest for three minutes before it's good to go. Sam shows example by lying down on the floor, his arms under his head and on a pillow from his bed, and Dean grabs a pillow of his own and sets it against Sam's side. He curls up beside his big brother and Sam releases his arm to hold him close.

"Did you have a nightmare?" he asks, "Or did the dog wake you up?"

Dean shrugs.

"I think I had a nightmare," he says quietly and grabs a hold of Sam's shirt.  
He pushes his face against Sam's side and his nose tickles his ribs.  
"Then the dog started howlin'."

"It was just a dream, Dean."

"How do you know?"

"You haven't made any deals. Hell can't get you if you don't make one. Remember the rules?"

"They break the rules sometimes."

"Not for no reason," Sam promises him, "Remember what I said earlier? No one's after you and no one's gonna hurt you while I'm around. And I'm right here, Dean. I'm keeping us safe."

"Hmm."

"No 'hmm', just 'mm', Dean. I'm not going anywhere, and neither are you. Do you need something? Juice?"

"Don't go," Dean mutters and holds harder.

"Alright. I'll stay here."

Sam watches the bottom of the table above them for a while in silence as Dean's grip loosens up and he starts fidgeting with Sam's shirt instead of holding onto it for dear life.

"Mom always sang to me when I had a nightmare," Dean says then.

"Do you want me to put on some music?" Sam asks him, ready to grab his phone again.

Dean nods, his nose dragging down and up again against Sam's body as he does so.  
"I want Zeppelin," he mumbles and nuzzles up closer.

"Sure."

"But nothing rough. Something... softer. Something nice."

"Alright."

In a moment, the sad guitar intro to _Babe I'm Gonna Leave You_ is playing in the background, and for a while Sam worries it might stir up the fear of him walking out again, but Dean seems content enough with it. By the time the tempo picks up, he shifts and gets up, wipes his nose and sighs deep.

"I'd like some juice now," Dean says in a rather devastated voice, one very unfitting for the words he's speaking.

Sam chuckles tiredly and crawls out of the very warm nest to the less than warm motel room outside. He digs up another paper cup and fills it from the carton, which by now is almost empty, and brings the cup back to the cave with him. Dean drinks thankfully, then sets the cup aside and crawls onto Sam. He brings his arms around his brother and latches on, and Sam, after hesitating a while, does the same to him. He strokes Dean's hair and holds him close, feeling his small body relax against him little by little as the song changes to _Stairway To Heaven_ behind them.

"I want to sleep here."

"Really? The floor's pretty hard," Sam mumbles, his lips pressing against the side of Dean's head.

"I don't mind," Dean assures him, sounding sleepy and about to doze off again.  
It's so easy for children to calm down - for Sam, it quite isn't like that, but he knows it hasn't been that way for Dean either for a very long time, and somehow, the fact that he won't be staying up all night because of the night fright makes him feel better, too.  
  
"It's so safe here. Thanks, Sam."

"It's not a big deal," Sam tells him, smiling.

Maybe he can at least doze off before morning and the winter festival.

 

* * *

 

Matilda drops by in the morning while they're both still well in their night gear and not even half-way out of the blanket fort, but she seems unphased by any of it to say at least while she stands by the doorway and asks them for their schedule. Sam promises her they'll be up and ready after breakfast at the diner, and she promises to pick them up from there in forty minutes. After brushing their teeth and switching into proper clothes, and after Sam has thrown the comforter off the sides of the table to let the radiator breathe just in case it would otherwise feel up to starting a fire today, they start walking towards the diner through the snow.

Small snowflakes like glitter are still coming down as they make their way past the craft store and towards the diner, but the roads are clear now and easier to walk on. The pedestrian's side is not quite slippery yet - the thousand boots trampling over the snow haven't hardened it into ice yet - but Dean still surfs over any part that even remotely looks like it might be frozen over. Inside, Sam grabs himself a tomato-mozarella bread and a tall coffee: for Dean, he orders a cup of apple juice and some scrambled eggs again. Dean's nervous and a little tired from the night before and he barely talks for the first fifteen minutes. However, the fifteen minutes after breakfast is dealt with and they've got nothing but time on their hands, he can't seem to shut up.

"What if they have a sled in there like that one festival had?" he asks eagerly, "Can we ride it?"

Sam squints at him, grinning.  
"I seem to remember you mocking people who rode those things back then, Dean," he reminds him, earning only a shrug of dismissal.

"I think it's cool," Dean says, as if his older self isn't so much as related to him at all, "And the snowman contest - we're participating, right? I mean, we've got to. They're giving out a prize, right? So what are we making? I don't even know how to make a snowman. I haven't made a snowman since _forever_."

And so on and so on. Sam finds himself drifting in and out of the conversation. The winter festival doesn't quite interest him on the level it interests Dean now, but he's looking forwards to it just the same: after last night, he feels like a little cheering up can't possibly hurt either of them. When Matilda appears out of a green Toyota, he's more than ready to get Dean some company his own age that can gush about the event with him and free Sam into the comfort of adult silences.

"You guys ready?" Matilda asks them.  
Jack's with her, and he's going for Dean just like he did the day before. Dean's just as excited to get to him, and without delay, he's already falling back into the excited chatter about the winter festival.

"More than," Sam assures her, laughing, "Let's go before Dean loses it completely."

The drive isn't long: they cross the first decorations in less than seven minutes. Finding parking space is a different matter, as it seems that the entire town and half of the closest nearby town are all there by car. Dean and Jack bicker playfully on the backseat and for the first time, Sam has to tell his brother off for it; they're pushing at each other with enough force that it could turn painful any minute now, or at least throw the car off the already slippery road. In the end they all unpack a few street corners away from the festival, and start walking back towards it with the boys laughing and talking loudly behind them. Sam steals a few glances of his brother while Matilda's talking about their plans - he can't remember ever seeing Dean at such ease, so carefree and _happy_ , and he can't help but wonder how he'll take Jack leaving the day after. He won't ruin the day by reminding him of it, however - he's sure Jack has told him by now, but he'll have to drag it up eventually just in case the boy hasn't. The last thing Dean needs is to find himself alone tomorrow, abandoned by yet another someone he thought he could trust to stick around.

There's a crowd around the festival stands. There's jewelry, knitted sweaters, Native American crafts, all sorts of winter-themed stuff to spend a fortune on. The boys quickly find the toy stand selling stuffed animals; Jack's drawn to a big green brontosaurus with fabric that has shiny scales printed onto its surface, but Dean's staying a little back, looking sad while Jack argues with his mother about the price.

"What's up, buddy?" Sam asks him quietly, kneeling beside him to let him answer privately.

Dean still hesitates. He shifts a little, then grabs Sam's sleeve and tugs at it.  
"We can't afford anything, can we," he asks sadly without looking at him.  
His gaze lingers upon the rows of polar bear teddies and a cute egg-shaped penguin with floppy toes sticking out of its bottom. There's a fairly realistic-looking seal, and a big, hug-sized orca; it seems to draw most of Dean's attention, but Sam feels his skin crawl when he imagines how much it'd cost.

"Look," he finally replies hesitantly, "you're right. We don't have that much. But what about this: we've both got some cash. Yours is at the motel, but you still have it, so we'll count it in, alright?"

Dean nods slowly.  
"Yeah."

"So, what if we make a deal here. We'll spend some time and have fun here -"

Jack lets out a loud shriek when his mother refuses for the last time to buy the dinosaur for him.  
"I DON'T WANT THE SMALLER REX," he shouts, and Matilda looks at Sam apologetically.

Sam suppresses a grin and shakes his head instead before turning back to Dean. It's his turn to take Dean's sleeve: he runs his hand along it until he finds his gloved fingers and takes a hold of his hand.

"- and we do our best at the snowman competition. Then, after we're done, we'll come back here and look how much money we have left together, and if you still want to buy something, we'll put our money together and see if it's enough."

Dean's lips bend into a small, timid smile and he nods, finally looking at Sam although it's a somewhat conspiring look. He examines Sam for a moment as if to make sure he isn't playing a joke, but when Sam's expression stays genuine, he finally relaxes.  
"Okay," he says.

"Good," Sam chuckles, grabs Dean's hood and pulls it over his head to protect his ears from the cold, "Let's go get some - sugar on snow?"

There's a stand nearby selling maple taffy. Sam's never had any, and based on the questioning look crossing Dean's features, neither has he.

"You want?" he asks, patting Dean on the back as he stands up, knees aching from the crouched pose and the cold.

"What is it?"

"I'm not sure, exactly," Sam confesses, "but I think it's boiled maple syrup that they pour on ice or fresh snow, and it forms a candy of some sort. It's probably disgusting."

"We should get some," Dean decides.  
He's already tugging Sam along when Sam stops him, reminding him they've got company.

"Hey, guys," Sam calls Matilda and teary-eyed Jack, "We're getting some maple taffy."

Matilda's brows jump, but she spots the stand nearby and brightens up.

"C'mon, Jack, don't be ridiculous," she huffs and drags her son with them, "Let's get you some candy."

"I want the dino," Jack whimpers and tries to root himself to the ground by digging in his heels.

Dean chokes on a breath and pulls at Sam's sleeve.  
"You know how we know I'm not a real kid?" he asks with a crooked grin, "That's how. I don't cry over toys."

Sam rolls his eyes. He's almost certain that tears weren't too far removed before while Dean was sure they wouldn't be able to buy a toy at all.

"Wanna hop on my back?" Sam asks suddenly as they're moving away from the toy stand towards the candy stand.

Dean looks at him surprisedly before lighting up.  
"Hell yeah," he breathes out.

Sam kneels back on the ground and Dean rushes around him; he's got boot-shaped bruises forming all over his hip and thigh for a moment as Dean scales him, but once he's got him by the legs, they're all good. He's nowhere near the heaviest thing Sam's ever carried, and they walk like that all the way to the taffy stand.

"Two of - whatever that is," Sam chuckles to the woman minding the stand, who glances at Dean hanging to his neck and smiles warmly at them.

"Alright, coming right up."

 

* * *

 

Jack's in a better mood after the taffy, but the downside is that both him and Dean are absolutely covered in sticky, quickly hardening maple syrup once the treats are done. Sam feels nauseous from the sweetness, but Dean seems immune to it; he barely has the time to ask Sam if Sam is done with his taffy before he's already taken it and devoured it, but Sam's thankful for the excuse to leave it unfinished. When they've spotted a good place on a nearby field for the snowman contest, both Matilda and Sam take some time to clean up their respective kids. There's even some taffy in Dean's hair, but getting it out seems impossible without scissors, so Sam leaves it where it is. He scratches off the smear from Dean's hood instead and leaves it at that.

"I wanna build a snow dog," Dean announces, "Like a really big one."

"I don't want to make a dog," Jack whines.

Dean looks insulted.  
"Well, what do you want to make?" he asks, showing some unexpected solidarity - perhaps to save his friendship, but all Sam can think of is all the times they were building snowmen as kids and they would always, always make the one that Dean wanted, as nothing else would pass.

Not that it mattered - they were only ever building snowmen because Sam wanted them to make them, so Dean's insistence could be taken as balancing things out.

"I wanna make a monster."

"A monster," Dean repeats dully.

"Yeah. Like a big yeti or something."

Dean considers it for a moment, eyes squinting; then, suddenly, he lights up.  
"Yeah," he breathes out in a cloud of mist, "Yeah, let's build a yeti. We can model it after Sam."

Sam and Matilda exchange glances; Sam rolls his eyes and Matilda laughs.

"Alright, we should get started or we'll never finish in time," she says then, and off they go.

Sam and Dean take it on themselves to roll up the biggest snowball they can make, and in ten minutes, it's big alright. Dirt clings to it on all sides from where the snow wasn't quite deep enough and they dragged up the muddy field underneath with the rest of it, but it's ready for the shaping, and while Jack and Matilda start forming it up, Dean continues carrying lapfuls of snow to them to add wherever they need. Soon enough they've got a head, a torso and a really fat bottom: Sam decides they should make the yeti sit on a rock so that they don't need to risk carving out half of its support structure, and with Dean's help, they pat two legs and two giant feet onto the big ball of snow they started out with. It's fun, even though his bare hands ache like hell from the cold. Sometimes, he slips them inside his pockets and just watches, mouth and nose hidden inside his scarf, and makes sure that this moment gets forever etched into his memory: he's certain it'll be one of the best moments in his life, and one of the memories he'll want to visit most often when it's gone. He watches his brother run back and forth between whatever snow remains around them and the vaguely human-shaped snow monkey they've carved out together, smiling and laughing with these two strangers they've just happened to meet on the way. These two very normal strangers - all together, they seem like an unlikely group.

In the midst of the yeti building, a man almost as tall as Sam approaches them, wrapped in a woolly black coat and wearing black glasses. He bears a striking resemblance to Jack and introduces himself to Sam by hand as Matilda's husband; he's got that business-like look about him but smiles the same way that Matilda does. He doesn't join in the building, but watches the rest of them work with a tired but happy look on his face, the same that Sam assumes he's worn the entire time on his own features, and he wonders if this man, too, is working on making this moment into a permanent memory.

They don't win the competition, but land on fourth place and get discount coupons for the outdoors café set up just for the day. It serves them steaming mulled wine and hot chocolates, and slips each of them a heart-shaped soft candy as a reward for participating in the contest. They sit by a table underneath a temporary shelter and watch the world buzz around them, conversing in a worn-out but happy manner, and it all seems so normal, so good, that Sam has difficulties associating himself with the moment at all. This has never been his life, at least not since college; these casual social gatherings, these... celebrations, he's almost forgotten how it all used to feel like. After some warm diner-quality food, they part ways for a while, promising to meet up in that same spot in thirty minutes to drive back to the motel. Once they've gone and Sam still stands there together with his small brother, Dean lets out a sigh that sounds so much like his adult self that Sam has to look to make sure he's still as little as before. Their gazes meet.

"I'm gonna miss him," Dean says softly, and he seems sad again, almost empty, and so tired it aches inside Sam.

Sam pulls him into a hug and holds him close for a while.  
"Let's go look at that toy stand from before," he says when he finally releases his brother again.

Dean fights in a smile and nods.  
"Yeah," he says, "I'd like that."

Five minutes later, he's hugging his new orca friend close to his body.


	7. Ache

* * *

 

It's a sudden but predictable disaster, and it strikes very soon after Dean has hopped out of the car on the motel parking lot. The ground's slippery, and he's carrying an orca the size of his body with him; he can't see his feet, and they hit an icy patch without a warning. Sam reaches for him when he falls, but he's too far and Dean falls too quickly: there's a sliding sound, the sound of an impact, and a half-audible gasp of pain. Then there's a stillness: all four of them behind Dean are holding their breaths as he lies there, stunned as the rest of them, before Sam finally budges onwards and grabs him. And he's honest to God crying now, holding his left wrist and sobbing with big drops wetting his face, but all the same he refuses to let go of his toy, and Sam has to pick both of them up. He pulls Dean against his shoulder and gives an apologetic smile to their company.

"Gotta go," he chuckles to them, one hand in Dean's hair and the other supporting him from below, "'t was - really nice going out with you guys. Hope to see you around, right?"

He's already walking when the goodbyes are exchanged, but Dean whines and wriggles around, sniffing.  
"I wanna say bye," he yelps, reaching for Jack with his good hand.

Jack lights up and rushes to him, slipping on the same spot Dean did but not quite falling despite it. Sam crouches far enough for the boys to hug, and then the moment's over. They head for the stairs and Jack's family heads to their downstairs room: tomorrow, they'll be gone.

"How're you holding up there, buddy?" Sam asks Dean as he fumbles to find the keys.

"It hurts real bad," Dean mumbles, but he's not sobbing anymore.  
Sam thinks it was more the shock than anything, but it's best to check the wrist anyway; he'll put a bandage on it for good measure. A hit like that hurts for a few days, with or without fracture.

"You'll be alright," he promises his brother as he places him back on the ground on the safe side of the door.

Dean nods. He sits on the nearest chair and lets out a choked sigh, plants his orca on the table and examines his red, bruised and swelling wrist. It looks bad.

"Alright," Sam tells him, helping him strip out of his hoodie, "Let's take a look at that."

"Is it broken?" Dean asks him, shifting in discomfort.

"Does it feel broken?" Sam asks him.

"Nah."

"Good. That's good."  
He's quiet for a moment as he turns the hand around gently from side to side.  
"You'll need it."

Dean chuckles breathlessly.  
"It's good, Sam, don't fuss," he says but doesn't quite manage to sound convincing.  
His fingertips are ice cold from the scare.

"Well, it's not broken," Sam confirms after a moment, "Not even a little bit. Just bruised. I'm still gonna wrap it up."

Dean relaxes, nodding. His fingers curl against the fabric of his orca and he strokes it gently while Sam fetches the first-aid kit and starts patching him up again.

"Do you think I can take him in the shower?" Dean asks him absently.

"Probably best that you don't," Sam chuckles, "or he'll be hanging out to dry for a week."

"Mm."

"Take your pony. You can play with the new guy when you come out. And watch the bandage, alright? Try not to get it wet."

"Yeah, I know, Sam. I'm not a -"

They exchange looks and Dean smiles crookedly. A sigh later, he slips off the chair and toddles towards the bathroom, rubbing his aching hand before he picks up the pony from the bedside table and starts undressing. He throws a wayward glance towards the girl clothes still sitting on the chair, and Sam looks away; he stares out the window for a little while before Dean's ready with a towel hanging around his shoulders.

"Can you read to me again?" Dean asks him.

He looks silly in the nude with his towel-cape, and Sam finds himself smiling at him again.

"Sure I can," he promises, "After you've showered and we've had something to eat."

Dean nods, spins around and disappears in the shower. Soon after, he's hanging by the doorway again.

"Um," he starts, hesitating, "Can you. Um. Can you help me?"

"Sure, Dean. What do you need?"

"I, hmm. I just - it's - could you wash my hair if - if..."

He doesn't get the words out, but he picks at the bandage around his hand and Sam figures the rest out for himself.

"Okay," he says, "I've got to shower anyway. Give me a second."

Dean makes a face as he turns around. In a moment, Sam joins him in the bathroom. The pony's standing on the sink's edge, but the soap bottle has moved off the sink and onto the toilet instead. Sam nudges it as he hangs his towel closer to the shower.

"Why's the soap evacuated?" he asks, sensing an opportunity.

"Star doesn't like it."

"Do you know why?"

Dean shifts and shrugs.  
"Just wash my hair, please," he mumbles, fingers twisting the shower handle but not quite strongly enough to turn it on.

Sam does it for him, and Dean holds his left hand out of the shower while Sam scrubs him over with some soap and lathers his hair with shampoo. He does his best to rub out the hardened candy, and as the water warms up, he thinks he manages it quite well - maybe so well, in fact, that scissors won't be necessary. When he's done, he lets Dean go, and as he washes himself Dean wraps up in a towel and idly, quietly, plays with his toy behind the shower curtain until Sam's ready and wrapping up too.

"Dean," Sam calls him, holding Dean by the shoulder so that the boy can't escape him, "I'm gonna ask you something and I need you to be honest, but I promise I won't ask anything more if you don't want to talk about it. Ready?"

Dean shifts again.  
"I guess," he mutters, hiding his pony under his towel that once more hangs from his shoulders like a cape.

Sam's fingers dig into his hair and brush through them as he asks his question.  
"Did the witches give you something to drink?"

Dean shudders.

"Yes," he says, "and I don't want to talk about it."

"That's alright. We can go eat now if you want."

"Yeah."

 

* * *

 

They pull the beds together to make more space and take apart the blanket fort to return the blankets and pillows onto the beds. Not that it really matters, as Dean falls asleep just as close to Sam as he did the night before, and the night before then. Sam reads to him until he does, and they both get quite into the story - it's half past eleven in the night when Dean's finally dozing off, and Sam has to force himself to put the tablet down. He hooks it up to recharge and turns off the lights, then curls his body around Dean's, imagining that they have to look like a pair of cats cradling one another. It's easy to fall asleep that way, even with the big fat orca between them, and they sleep well into late morning the next day.

It's already bright and sunny when they wake up, this time with Dean a little before Sam: he's already wearing the purple dress when Sam gets up, and he tries to avoid Sam's gaze all the way until Sam leaves him in the room with Netflix on the tablet to fetch some breakfast for them. It's pancake day again, this time for them both; Sam brings extra jam, a fresh carton of juice and some bananas for good measure, as well as the tallest cup of coffee he can fill for himself. He makes no note of Dean's clothes whatsoever, and slowly Dean seems to forget to feel self-conscious altogether: he finds the mirror, hauls up a chair to reach it, and poses in front of it for a bit before laying out all the pencils and papers on the bed again.

They draw together, Dean more actively while sometimes stopping to watch something on the TV, and Sam on the side of browsing his laptop, this time for information about spells using potions. It seems bad - the general consensus seems to be that if a spell is absorbed into the body instead of simply cast _onto_ the body, its strength can easily multiply and its effects become much more permanent, but often with gruesome side-effects as the components and sheer power of the spell itself wreak havoc with the victim's biology. Dean, however, seems to be doing alright: his body appears fine, and Sam assumes that if he was going to start vomiting out his entire digestive system in the form of bloody mush, it would have happened by now. So, the cult knows what it's doing - but he already knew that.

Over the afternoon, Sam reads to Dean again for an odd hour or so. Afterwards, Dean pulls on his hoodie, hides the hem of his purple dress underneath it, and covers up the rest with his pair of jeans. It's cold outside, so all the layers will come in handy: he promises to be back in two hours at most and not to leave the motel's premises, and vanishes for a good long sixty-seven minutes before knocking on the door again.

There's something different about him as he takes off the excess clothes, and at first, Sam worries about the quietness of him. Turns out it's nothing to worry about - not the way he thought at first, anyway.

"Someone asked me if I'm lost," Dean tells him over some slices of bread and a cup of juice, "I - I don't know. I guess I looked that way."

"Where were you?"

"Sitting by the reception."

"Huh."

"She was really nice. She just wanted to make sure I'm not in any trouble. But she..."  
Dean swallows.  
"She reminded me of... of Mom."

Sam raises his brows, and for a moment, he doesn't know what to say. It's always been a sore subject for them; Dean's mostly kept quiet about Mary, and often told him to keep quiet about it, too. But in this mindset... it shouldn't come as a surprise. It only makes sense that he feels closer to her memory now, with only a couple physical years separating him from the boy she could still hold in her arms.

Somewhere deep, Sam aches at the thought. He swallows and drops his gaze to his bread, watching the sunlight from the window reflect from the jam spread on it.

"That's nice," he finally says, feeling quite like an idiot.

Dean shrugs, and they spend the rest of their lunch in silence.

 

* * *

 

They eat at the diner later that day, and Sam spots an ad on the local newspaper that he tears out and hides in his pocket for later. He examines his brother eating his mac and cheese in silence, and tries to look for hints in him - anything would do. He's been quiet since mentioning the woman who made him think of Mary, and Sam's set on letting him work through it as he needs to; meanwhile, he's got his own worries to attend to.

There's nothing, absolutely nothing, in Dean that would even remotely imply he's going to be turning back to his adult self anytime soon. He's still got his boyish, plump, freckled cheeks the same as any other day until now. His body's small, his fingers short, his skin hairless and fair, and there's _nothing_  whatsoever about him that would set Sam's mind at ease on the matter. For nearly a week, he's been in this same state with no end in sight. The spell was delivered in a potion that did not break his body, which has to mean that it settled in perfectly - that he absorbed it, that it became a _part_ of him.

That spell, whatever it was, is now inside his brother. It's in his every cell, in his genetical make-up as far as Sam can imagine, and that way, it has every damn chance in the world of having changed him for good. It has no set expiration date. It has nothing. It's a traceless poison that has worked its way through his brother, and what remains now is the aftermath, the kind that Sam knows nothing about it. They've never had to work with spells like these: a physical spell is worlds away from a spell working through a hex bag or a chant. It's old-fashioned magic, the kind that most modern witches steer far away from due to its unstable, complicated nature.

More and more, it's starting to look like he's going to need a job - but where will Dean go if he's working? Daycare? School? He can trust Dean not to wander off the motel lot and he can leave him to play on his own outside for a couple hours, but somehow, he can't trust another adult with him. The thought of leaving him with a stranger for extended periods of time on a daily basis, surrounded by real children and a framework of normalcy that has nothing to do with them or their situation - it scares him. He watches Dean stuff his mouth and wonders how he would take that idea. On one hand... yes, he'd meet new friends. On the other, this hasn't been his life in thirty years. How would he ever adjust back into it? Or has he already?

Inside his skull, Sam feels a headache brewing.

"You wanna take a short walk with me?" he asks Dean once they're both finished with food.

"I guess," Dean says idly, "Can we go look at the Christmas tree? We missed the reveal."

"I know. I'm sorry about that."

"It's alright. It's just a tree, anyway."

"But it's a big tree," Sam reminds him, forcing himself to smile again - he's worried, yes, but Dean doesn't need to know it. "It's definitely worth checking out."

So they set out towards the town's center again, this time to see the huge Christmas tree with all its glowing lights in the early-falling darkness.

Ten days to Christmas, Sam finds himself thinking.

 

* * *

 

Dean spends an hour watching TV again, and Sam finds himself drifting towards him until they're sitting there side by side, sluggishly making their way through the remaining bag of chips. After dinner, they're not really feeling it, but it's nice to eat something while watching the cartoons: it just seems to happen naturally. In the end, when Sam throws the empty bag into the trash, he feels slightly nauseous and a lot like he needs to exercise more - his stomach feels swollen and uncomfortable, and it drags his mood down. Dean seems unaffected, and so they head outside in compromise; they build another snowman, this time just a regular one with a potato-shaped ball of snow for a nose and small pebbles for eyes and buttons, so that Sam gets some movement and fresh air while Dean gets to do something to get rid of all the energy that staying indoors has built up within him.

"I really liked the Christmas tree," Dean tells him for the tenth time after visiting it.

It was big and it was brilliant - that much Sam's already admitted.  
"Yeah," he says absently, "It was a really cool tree."

"What are we doing tomorrow? Are we doing something?"

The corner of Sam's mouth twitches. He sits down on a big ball of snow next to the snowman, grabs Dean and pulls him over. He adjusts his hoodie and pulls his gloves on more firmly, sliding his fingers over the wet spots in them. Then he smiles.

"I was thinking of something, yeah," he says.

"What is it?"

"Just something I saw in the newspaper."

"Tell me."

Dean crawls onto his lap, and Sam lets him settle there before wrapping an arm around his form. He's so warm and so damn soft and so light: something about holding him relaxes Sam every time, makes his mind quiet and content.

"I thought we could go skating," he tells him, fingers rubbing at the red, cold tip of Dean's left ear.  
Then he brings his hand down and pulls the sleeve of Dean's left hand up, examining his bandaged wrist while he reacts - it's still swollen, and it hurts to move as Dean hasn't so much as put a pebble into the snowman with that hand, but it seems better off than earlier.

"Like - ice skating?" Dean confirms, and Sam pulls his sleeve back down.

Sam nods.  
"Yeah. What'd you think of that?"

"I don't know," Dean says hesitantly, "I've never done it. Besides, I don't have any skates either. I can't go with my shoes."

"They rent skates there. They're like three dollars per go or something, it was really cheap. Don't worry about it, I'm sure they've got some that fit you."

"Sam."

"Yeah?"

"I miss Mom."

Sam's quiet for a moment. Then he pulls Dean closer, all the way until he wriggles to readjust and lays his head on Sam's shoulder. His breath hits Sam's neck as small, warm puffs that leave the exposed skin slightly moist and vulnerable to the freezing weather.

"I miss her, too," Sam says quietly when Dean's still again.

"You never got to know her."

Sam nods.  
"Maybe that makes it easier. Sometimes I feel... like it makes it worse. I don't know what I'm missing like you do, but I've always been jealous of people who get to have their moms anyway. I can imagine all the things they're doing, and it stings."

"I hate it," Dean mutters, his fist wrapping around Sam's collar, "I hate it."

"I know. Me too."

"I want a mom. I want MY mom. It's worse now. It's like I just lost her. I don't like this, Sam. I don't like it."

Sam holds him and presses his face against the side of Dean's head, breathes him in.  
"I know, Dean. But we've got each other. We'll always have each other, you know? I'm not going anywhere."

"You've left me before."

A thick swallow later, Sam nods.  
"Yeah. I have. But I won't do it again."

"I know you had to do it," Dean mumbles, sounding tired and sad, "I know _why_ you did it. Every time. I _know._ But it doesn't make it easier. It still hurts. I'm still scared. I hate it. I hate people leaving me. I'm scared of it."

"I know."  
Without thinking, Sam kisses him: first on the side of his head and then on his forehead. It comes easy, somehow. Dean freezes for a moment, then hides his face and sighs.

"I'm not gonna leave you, Dean," Sam tells him while he's still hiding.

"I know."

"Good."

Sam lets him off his lap and Dean straightens up his hoodie. A small sliver of his purple dress peeks out from underneath it, and Sam stands up after watching it for a moment.  
"Let's go back inside, it's getting really cold in here. Neither of us needs to get sick right now."

 

* * *

 

 

Sam rents the room for a few more days. In the reception, an old woman watches him with watery eyes, and does so with such intensity that he feels it in the back of his neck the whole time he's making the reservation. When he turns, about to leave, she motions him closer.

"I've seen you about," she tells him in a thoughtful voice.

"Oh," Sam hears himself say, unable to decide what to expect of her.

She nods, and her black eyes still search him as she does so. Her salt-and-pepper hair is tied up in a bun when she opens up her bag and brings out her knitting equipment. She sorts them out with clumsy, stiff fingers for a while with a sigh escaping her before she finally brings out a black beanie and hands it to Sam.

"You don't clothe that kid for the weather. Give him this. Spares him the ear infection. I made it for him. No need to thank me for the trouble, I know you boys are poor. Wouldn't be living out of that car if it wasn't so."

Sam raises his brows and doesn't think to accept the beanie before she thrusts it at him.

"Just take it," she tells him, and he finally grasps the thing, "One dead kid in town is enough."

"What do you mean?" Sam asks her, suddenly sharp, "Who's dead?"

"The Miller girl, Annie. She was only seven years old."

"What happened?"

The woman shrugs.  
"Sometimes it just isn't meant to be," she simply states and fingers her knitting needle with her wrinkly fingertip for a moment, "Cancer, I believe."

Sam's body relaxes. He sighs, an odd ache stuck in his chest. He thinks of Dean, suddenly - thinks of the side-effects of potion spells. Mutations, ulcers, growths.

"Was she sick for a long time?" he asks.

"All her life. She's got a sister, but she's healthy. Your boy seems fine."

"He's - he's good, yeah. Always been. He's barely ever sick, but gets in a lot of trouble."

The woman nods.  
"Saw him slip on the parking lot yesterday," she notes, "Through my window."

"Right. Yeah. I patched him up, but the wrist's still pretty sore."

The woman nods again.  
"Kids heal fast," she says and starts picking up the stitches without looking at Sam, "Enjoy the hat."

"We will. Thank you so much."

She waves her hand, but a small smile lingers on her lips when she speaks.  
"Told you not to thank me," she reminds him, "Good night, big guy."

"Good night," Sam tells her back with a small laugh, waves at the receptionist and walks out onto the dark parking lot.

He's still fingering the soft fabric of the hat when he reaches the gently glowing porch upstairs and gets back inside the room. Dean raises his head from his drawings - lots and lots of striped cats in all colours - and squints at the hat.

"What's that?"

"A hat," Sam replies and throws the hat across the room, "Try it on."

"Where did you get it?" Dean asks, but he's already pulling it on.  
It fits a little loosely, but covers up his ears and looks damn cute on top of it. Sam smiles at him before setting his coffee down.

"An old woman gave it to me while I was checking in."

"Oh. I've seen her. She knits a lot. I thought you stole it or something."

Sam chuckles.  
"Right. Does she live here?"

Dean shrugs.  
"She's always around so I guess so," he tells him before getting back to his drawings, "Jack knew her better, he was always chatting with her. She's Blackfoot."

"Alright."  
Sam sets out a cup of juice on the table and pulls out the last couple slices of bread with the half-finished jar of jam beside them.  
"Come eat, Dean."

"Were still going skating, right?" the boy asks when he gets up from the bed and skips to the table.

"If you want to. I mean, now you're better prepared, too."

"Do you think I'll stay up?"

Sam grins.  
"I'll hold you up until you get the hang of it."

"What, you know how to skate?" Dean asks him suspiciously.

Sam shrugs.  
"We had a few P.E. classes on ice," he tells Dean, "I guess you skipped them all."

"I did. But it's been, like, two decades."

"I guess we'll find out."  
He's quiet for a moment.  
"I'm not going, anyway."

"What?"

"I mean, I'll be there. I just won't be skating."

"Why?"

There's a pause before Sam replies.  
"Because I can't rent two sets of skates," he finally says, looking at Dean for a while, "It's not a big deal for me and I want you to go, and we could afford the second set if I _really_ wanted to come, I just... don't, you know? I'd rather spend it on something that's really important."

"We don't have to go."

"No, don't - Dean, look. I don't really wanna skate, but I really, really wanna bring you skating. Does that make sense?"

The tension in Dean's body loosens up and he smiles a little at the slice of bread that Sam sets in front of him.

"Okay," he says.

Then he glances at Sam and pushes the bread back.  
"Could you take the crust off for me?" he asks timidly.

"Oh."  
Sam grabs the slice.  
"Sure. I forgot you don't like it."

Dean's smile widens a little. When he gets his bread back, he digs into it with enthusiasm.

 


	8. God Stuff and Trees

* * *

 

Dean climbs onto Sam when Sam settles against the bed's headboard again with his tablet in one hand. The kid lays his head against Sam's chest and his bony knees and small toes poke into Sam's flesh for quite a while before they're both comfortable, but he's warm and his weight feels alright there, and so Sam begins reading to him again while he watches, hand fisted in Sam's tee with his knuckles touching his parted lips. Sam plants his palm over Dean's side and holds him still, stopping him from slipping down when he starts relaxing, but Dean's falling asleep quickly today, perhaps thanks to the walk they took and the time they spent outdoors afterwards. That, or he's just tired from all the excitement the past few days in general: either way, he's out like a light much earlier than the days before, and Sam switches off from reading to watching Netflix for some forty minutes with Dean still sleeping against his chest before he finally feels sleep creeping over himself as well.

The night is uneventful, and dawns too soon. Sam wakes slowly, first to Dean climbing off the bed and turning on the morning cartoons, and then not much later to the sounds of him playing quietly on the floor. There's the rolling sound of a pencil making its way across the floor, the muffled sounds of Dean's voice, and the tapping of the pony's vinyl hooves against a hard surface. When Sam opens his eye to peer around, still half-asleep, he sees the orca on the bed covered by Dean's blanket with just its head poking out, and the pony bouncing beside it, nudging the blanket with its mouth, with Dean's hand grasping it by the back. Next appears Dean's face: he peers over the edge of the bed at Sam and measures his state, then breaks into a smile when he's clearly awake enough to recognise what's happening around him.

Stiffly, Sam pulls himself up from the bed and stretches as Dean hops back on the bed and grabs his shirt again.

"When are we going?" the boy asks him eagerly.

"Huh?"

"Skating. When are we going?"

Sam chuckles sleepily.  
"We've got to eat some breakfast first. Diner on the way?"

"Yeah."

"Let me brush my teeth first and wear something other than my pyjamas."

"Alright. But fast, Sam."

"Alright, alright."

Sam feels like his body's moving in slow motion, but while he's sorting himself through the tasks assigned, Dean resumes his previous activity on the floor and doesn't seem to be much bothered by his brother's tardiness. It takes Sam some odd eight minutes to gather everything he needs, much more than on any usual morning, but sleep is leaving him slowly and the nice warmth of the bed simply refuses to let go of him - it lingers in his muscles and on his sensitive skin that seems to constantly form goosebumps in response to any movement in the air. For a moment, he stops to check his health: does his throat hurt, do his nostrils feel stuffy or do they burn? However, he finds absolutely nothing wrong with himself, and the relief seems to shake him up somewhat.

"C'mon, kid. Let's go."

"Mm."

They cross the parking lot trying hard not to slip. The Impala is cold as hell inside, and as the old car she is, she's got no chance of warming up before they're already parked in front of the diner. At least the diner's warm.

"Bacon, please?" Dean nudges Sam on the side as they approach the counter.

"Sure. We'd like - um - scrambled eggs and bacon both, some fresh orange juice for the kid and a tall coffee for me," Sam tells the man behind it.

While he's working on the order, Dean squints at Sam and Sam responds to the gaze with raised brows.  
"What?"

"Where's your porridge?" Dean asks, and Sam laughs.

"I think I need some protein," he tells his brother.

They sit by their usual table in the corner, both glancing out the window at the cloudy morning. It's barely eleven yet, but it's late on their standards: Sam's used to waking up by nine at latest, and he knows Dean hardly ever wakes up much later himself. Today's special - slow, even sluggish - and it feels like a good idea to get out in the cold for a bit to shake off the worst of it.

"You're excited, huh," Sam speaks to the window, and even though he's quite far from it, his breath still clouds up the surface for a fleeting moment.

"Skating sounds fun," Dean replies in a rather defensive tone, "I still wish you'd come, too."

"Well, I'll be there. I think you'll need me. I'll just be wearing my shoes."

"You'll slip."

"To be honest, you're the one balancing on two blades. I think I'll be fine, in comparison."

"Whatever. Can we get burgers after?"

"What, you think today's junk food day?"

"Yeah."

"We'll see about it."

"Come on, Sam, you can't force me to be healthy every day. I'm a kid. I deserve a burger every now and then."

"If I'd let you pick what you eat at every meal, you'd end up a fat kid pretty fast, Dean."

"Yeah, like I was a fat adult. Come _on._ Besides, what's wrong with fat?"

Sam chuckles.  
"Nothing," he admits, "I guess it's your choice. Fine. Burgers today, but tomorrow's my pick."

"Good."

"How's your wrist?"

Dean wriggles his hand around carefully, grimaces a little and shrugs.  
"Better," he admits, "Still feels kinda nasty."

"Try to avoid falling on it again today."

"Yeah. The bandage's getting kinda itchy, too."

"We'll take it off after. Let your skin breathe a bit. But only after, just in case."

"Okay. Hey, Sammy?"

"Yeah?"

"Can I have your bacon?"

Sam rolls his eyes. He pokes his fork under the pile and transfers half of it to Dean.

"Thanks," Dean utters in a breathless voice and digs right in.

Sam's never liked bacon that much to begin with.

 

* * *

 

The rink looks bigger than Sam thought. They travel along the edge of it towards the small building nearby, hosting a café and the small shop renting out skates. Dean's neck looks exposed underneath the collar of his hoodie and Sam rips off his scarf to wrap it around the kid's neck instead: he'll need it more if he gets any speed on those blades, anyway. At first, Dean tries to fight him - the scarf is big and makes moving his head difficult - but he settles down soon enough when they enter the building and he's already torn it loose around his neck. It seems to slip his mind completely when they start trying on the skates, finally settling on a small black pair. They cost four dollars to rent, one more than Sam had expected, but it's still a low enough price for him to pay it from his wallet with some loose cash. After a final whimper from Dean about how he should get a pair for himself, they walk out again, although it's slow work with Dean balancing on his skates the whole way. They take off the caps by the edge of the ice and Sam holds Dean up as they both step onto it; once he feels steady after the first shock of standing on two thin blades on a slippery surface, they start moving around the ice at a patient pace.

"How do I do this?" Dean asks: he's walking on the ice, not so much skating, but it's a good first step for him to stay up at all.

"You're supposed to - to press the front of the blade into the ice and kick off, weight on the other foot so that it slides forwards."

Dean leans his balance onto his other foot but sways when he tries to lift the other. He lands it back down and squints with displeasure.

"It's not working."

"I'll hold your shoulder and you try it again, alright? Just keep your balance when you slide, you can crouch down if you need to."

"Does it help?"

"Yeah, somewhat. At least it's a shorter fall if you end up crashing."

"Ugh."

It takes a few tries, but finally Dean's sliding forwards - slowly, and crouching very low over the ice, but still moving in the right direction. He pulls himself forwards a few more times with his fingertips, then butts onto the ice, spins around and grins at Sam.

"How did I do?" he asks with a silly, radiant smile of achievement on him, and Sam has to check himself twice not to burst into laughter.

"Good," he manages to choke through it, "Good, you're - doing great. Try again."

They go that way most the way around the rink before Dean hops off the ice and sits himself down on the edge. He stretches his legs forwards and rubs at his feet through the stiff skates with a pained expression on his features.  
"It really hurts," he says with displeasure, "My feet are cramping."

"Yeah, I remember that. Rest for a bit and it'll go away."

"Mm."

"Do you like it?"

"I want to go faster," Dean says.  
He grabs some snow from the pile he's sitting on, shapes it into a ball and throws it on the ice. Sam slides to it on his shoes and scrapes it off.

"Don't do that," he puffs, chucking the snow back onto the pile next to Dean, "Someone's going to slide into it and fall."

"This is stupid."

"It's not stupid. You just have to keep trying until you get the hang of it."

"What if I won't?"

"You will. You're already doing a lot better. You're standing up, right? And I'm not holding you."

A careful, encouraged smile spreads onto Dean's lips and he nods hesitantly.  
"I guess."

"So? You wanna try again a bit faster?"

"Alright."

A little unbalanced, Dean climbs up from the pile and steps back onto the ice. He sways, but then, without looking at Sam once, he kicks off and slides a longer distance: without Sam telling him to, he lifts his other foot and kicks more speed with it, sliding forwards again. Just when Sam's about to tell him he's doing good, he slips and falls, however - a small sound of pain escapes him when his knees collide with the ice, but when he turns to look at Sam, he's smiling.

"That was cool," he breathes out, already climbing back up, "I'm gonna do it again."

This time, he gets four kicks in before crouching down and breaking the speed up with his hands. And he's laughing: the sound makes Sam's stomach tingle with warm sparks.

 

* * *

 

Three hours later, cold and stiff with the freezing weather, they sit down in front of the rental shop and return the skates. Dean wriggles his toes to drive the tension off his soles, and then slips back into his shoes with a bright, wide smile on him. They head to the café - it sells cheeseburgers for kids, and Sam gets one of them for Dean, a sandwich for himself and a milkshake for them both, and sits them down by the back wall.

"Well?" he asks Dean, who seems to puff up with excitement, "How was it?"

"It was cool," Dean tells him eagerly, "I went really fast, did you see it? I crossed the whole rink like twice!"

"You did."

"Yeah, and did you see me race that girl?"

"You raced a girl?"

Dean nods twice before wrapping his lips around the straw in his milkshakes and dragging a big gulp.  
"Yeah," he says, his tongue covered with vanilla cream, "And I won, kinda, too."

"Well, she was like four years old."

"So you saw it?"

Sam laughs.  
"Yeah," he admits, "I saw it."

"I wanna come again."

Sam lifts his brows.

"I'm really tired," Dean admits, "But I want to do this again. It was _fun._ "

"Yeah," Sam agrees, "It was. We should come back later. Let your feet recover a couple days and then - yeah, sure. Why not."

"Cool."

Dean's voice is dreamy again, but he drowns the sentiment to his cheeseburger and chews loudly for a while before breaking into another smile and wiping mayonnaise off his upper lip with the back of his hand. It crosses right onto his jeans next and Sam feels his insides twitching uncomfortably. Yep, they'll need a laundromat day now for sure - he can't push it back any further.

"I didn't slip once for the last hour."

He slipped twice in the last hour, but Sam just smiles at him and nods.  
"You were really good," he tells him instead.

"Do you think I could try playing hockey next time? With the other boys."

"Sure. Just ask them, I'm pretty sure they'll let you join. You think you can handle a stick?"

"Yeah."

"Good. Then you should try it."

Dean's shining.  
"Thanks for bringing me," he breathes out and bites into his cheeseburger again, "I had so much fun."

"Well, we can't just sit inside every day."

"Still."

Sam smiles. He gnaws at his sandwich for a while looking out the window at the other kids and adults still spinning around the rink before finally nodding.  
"It was fun," he says.

"Yeah."

Their eyes meet and Sam reaches out, nudges Dean on the nose.  
"Bet you regret skipping your P.E. classes now," he tells him.

"Nah," Dean huffs, "It was still worth it."

 

* * *

 

Dean's still excited through the drive back to the motel, although he mostly spends his energy on slapping his sticky hands against the window whenever something interesting passes by. They spot two riders along the side of the road, and some dogs that count as points of great importance for Dean, and the store from which Sam gets them some snacks and fruit for the motel room keeps him occupied at the price of a small bag of gummy bears. Back at the motel, they greet the old woman who knit Dean his hat as she passes them; she enters the room number 12 on ground level, which confirms to them that she does indeed stay there.

An email waits for Sam on his laptop. He glances it over, and his heart skips a beat; a witch hunter located in Oklahoma has sent him the tracking details of a package containing most of the ingredients he'd need for the counterspell suggested to him by the witch he'd spoken with. It comes with a nod of approval - nothing about the spell seems off. Sam types him up a response, answering him why he'd needed this, and seeing no reason to lie, he tells the man about the case they'd been after. He still won't say a word about Dean, but he tips him off regardless without giving out too much. If he wants the case, he'll figure it out by himself, or he'll ask for more; regardless, Sam can't help him more than this, not before Dean's able to defend himself.

Just in case.

They spend the next couple days in relative silence. A routine is beginning to form up: in the mornings, they go to the diner for breakfast. Sam takes a cup of coffee with him, Dean gets a cup of hot chocolate or settles for some juice back at the motel room, and they watch TV together for an hour or two. Often, they go out afterwards, either for a walk or just far enough to find enough snow for Dean to play in: it gives them both something to do, something to keep their limbs stretched and blood flowing, and enough oxygen to keep their brains awake. Then they go back indoors, and often enough the next thing on schedule is cuddling. Sam suspects its his own relaxation into physical affection that has signaled Dean he's allowed to seek contact at will, and he does so with something of a vengeance. He likes to curl up beside Sam while Sam's on his computer, sometimes for a nap and sometimes to watch Netflix with him or just to idly stare at various locations inside the motel room while Sam does whatever he does beside him. At other times, he crawls on top of his brother and sits there drawing or talking - it seems he never runs out of subjects, either, and his talking can go on for ages. Sam likes to listen, although most of Dean's ramblings go right out the other ear; they're never too important, but never quite boring, either. In the evening, they shower together, brush their teeth together, and crawl under the blanket together. Sam still reads to Dean until he falls asleep, but more often than not, in the silence that follows it, he resumes reading the spell over and over again, preparing. Once the ingredients arrive, he'll be one herb short - a herb, granted, that is extremely endangered and hard to acquire, but nevertheless closer than he'd dared to dream.

With five days to Christmas remaining, Sam decides it's time to find presents.

 

* * *

 

 

"Where are you going?"

"You know, just shopping," Sam evades; he's pulling on his shoes as he does so.  
"Get dressed, I'm gonna take you to the group."

"I don't want to go," Dean groans, still sitting on the bed wearing nothing but his wolf print t-shirt and his light grey boxer-briefs, "It's a church thing, they'll talk about God and stuff."

"I know," Sam huffs, "but I promise you, it's not _that_ bad. There's a bunch of other kids in there, you'll make friends in no time. And there are activities, it's not just God stuff. The pamphlet says you'll go sliding and everything. C'mon, Dean, humour me."

"But why can't I just come with you?"

Slowly, Sam straightens up. He blows some stray hair off his face and grimaces.  
"Because I need some alone time. And not the way you're thinking, either."

"Gross."

"Ugh. Dean, please. Put on some pants and let's get going. If it's not fun, I owe you $5."

"And a bacon burger with double cheese."

"Deal."

" _Fine_ ," Dean sighs and slides off the bed, "But I hate this."  
  
His every movement is exaggerated and dramatic as he pulls on his jeans.

"You can hate it all you want, it's only going to be for three hours," Sam reminds him, unable to suppress the relief inside him, as if he hadn't been entirely sure if he'd manage to convince Dean.

"Three hours of God stuff and eternal damnation."

"There's no eternal damnation on an activity day, Dean. Stop whining, you're driving me nuts."

"You're not the one who has to go to church on Saturday."

"You're not going to - oh, drop it, Dean."

Dean puffs.  
"Never," he utters antagonistically, but they make it out the door regardless.  
He's still puffing and huffing when he's sitting on the Impala's front seat right next to Sam, and Sam hands him a stray gummy bear from the bottom of the nearly empty bag in his pocket.

"And not a word more, okay?" he tells him as he releases the bear onto his brother's palm.

Dean stuffs it in his mouth and shrugs. He's quiet on the way to the church and he seems anxious enough, as if he's really in for a three hours long mass instead of a day full of colouring books, games and outdoor play, but Sam lets him sulk. At least this way, he can't be disappointed. A female priest smiles at them at the door when Sam drops Dean in. He asks for a tour of the place, just in case, but his hidden EMF makes no sound and there's nothing suspicious around that would even remotely trigger any alarms inside him. The activities take place in a kindergarten, and everything's near uncomfortably colourful and cheerful with toys scattered on the floors, and with kids around and a little under Dean's age already sitting here and there doing their own things. Everything checks out, so Sam gives his unwilling big brother a hug before turning around and leaving. Elena, the priest, asks him when he's picking his son up: Sam promises to be back around two in the afternoon, and skips correcting her about their relationship.

He heads out towards the town centre again, but he's not entire sure what he's looking for yet. He tours around the second-hand store all over again looking for something, but he's got no idea whether he's looking for something for Dean or for _little_ Dean instead. Will the spell last over Christmas? All signs are pointing towards a positive. In the end, Sam settles for the more expensive option: he'll get something for both his big brother and his smaller brother. Something, preferably, that will last over the transformation, if one is to come anytime soon. Figuring out what exactly that something is, however, turns out to be not so easy.

He gets his small brother some Christmas-themed sweets first. He's got his hands full of small candycanes, chocolates and some gingerbread, and he buys them all with wrapping paper and clear tape. He adds in a new scarf - Dean will definitely need that, big or small - and hesitates a long while in front of some shiny new skates. Not only are they too expensive, but there's no way he could find a size compromise, so he leaves them behind eventually. Instead, he buys a new pack of cards: those they'll find use for for sure.

Next, he gets the cheapest fake tree he can find, grabs a bunch of tinsel and some cute bird baubles to hang on the tree. He takes a fragile-feeling golden star covered with golden glitter, throws it in, and spends extra on two strings of LED Christmas lights: one that comes in a rainbow of colours, and one with simple white lights. He hauls all this into the car and sits there feeling guilty and hollow and burdened for a while before he finally stands up again and ventures inside the clothing store.

It's covered with tinsel, and Christmas songs are playing endlessly on the radio. Carefully, Sam moves through the store: he knows what he's looking for, but he looks endlessly odd looking for it. It's not often that he feels self-conscious wandering through stores, not if he's going to _buy_ something anyway, but this time's a bit different. This store offers zero clothing for men, and lots and lots for women.

He's not sure how Dean will take it, but if there's one thing he's made clear so far, it's that he really, really likes his purple dress. And in the newspaper, Sam's got exactly the thing that he needs to carry that small joy with him into the future - if only, if _only_ , he can get the right size.

 

* * *

 

They're still finishing off the Christmas-themed lunch when Sam wanders back in the kindergarten. In the motel room, he's set the Christmas tree in the middle of the floor where Dean simply can't miss it, and all that they need to decorate it sits around the tree itself in the hopes that it'll distract the kid so much that he doesn't think to look behind those empty boxes that have inexplicably been left underneath their beds. Behind those boxes and their big bag full of all sorts of weapons and hex bags to hide and protect them, there are a bunch of presents hidden away; under the bed seemed the most secure spot offered to Sam by the small room with no closets or locked doors to speak of, but he's far from certain it'll keep Dean away for the four and a half days yet to come.

Elena's still there, but Father Christopher, a balding man in his thirties, has appeared to her assistance. Sam stands around with them talking about the coming holidays and their plans, which he tries to be honest about but at least make them sound plentiful enough not to warrant a visit from the Child Protective Services, as well as what Dean has been up to throughout the day so far. Turns out he seems to have enjoyed himself quite a lot, just as Sam suspected he would: he took extra pleasure in sliding down the hill behind the church, and seemed to strike up a friendship with two sisters aged nine and five, whom he's still eating with as Sam stands there. Unknown to him, Dean's brought his pony; he must have hidden it inside the pocket of his hoodie while Sam was still preoccupied getting frustrated with him, as it now stands on the table discussing whatever pony things it has on its mind with a Barbie doll and a small stuffed cat toy. Nobody seems to mind that he's got a girl toy, although Sam's sure that if someone tried, Dean would be ready to defend himself. He used to be so good at that, even when the words really did hurt him, until later in life. When they were young, there was nothing, not one thing, that could get his brother - not while anyone else was still looking, anyway.

"He's a good boy," Father Christopher says.  
He's got kind eyes, and for no apparent reason, Sam finds himself trusting him immediately.

"Dean's the best," Sam tells him with a small crooked smile, "Always been."

It takes twenty minutes for Dean to say goodbye, and he's quiet again but still smiling as they climb into the Impala. There, he looks around for a little while before coming back at Sam with a suspicious expression.

"Nice shopping," he comments, "You bought nothing. What were you _really_ doing, Sam?"

Sam laughs as he starts the car.  
"I already dropped them at the motel," he says, "You'll see when we get there."

"Why do you have to be so mysterious about this?"

"Because," Sam replies with a smile he knows annoys his brother, but he simply can't help it, "I know you'll love it. Just hang in there while I grab a coffee and then you'll see."

The diner's more heavily populated than usual when Sam enters it in a hurry. He's fidgety as he stands in the line with three people ahead of him, and he can't quite figure out why: it's just a Christmas tree. He's never been big on Christmas, but for some reason... this one matters. He casts a glance back towards the car and Dean, whose pony seems to be having an adventure on the dashboard, and he finds himself smiling again: of course it's important. They may have never gotten the chance to have a proper, fulfilling, Hallmark card Christmas back in their real childhoods, but right now... Sam's got the chance to give one to Dean.

Or, he thinks as he steps to the front and orders his tall coffee to go, to be exact, Dean did have three Christmases that Sam figures were Hallmark-worthy and perfect, the ones that came before Sam was born. But just three, and at least two of them before the kid could even form any proper memories. It doesn't matter. This one could as well be his first.

The sun hangs low above the treeline as Sam sets them back on the road and drives the Impala to the motel. Dean's smiling absently, his fingers brushing along the shapes of the pony on his lap as they park up, and he undoes his seat belt and slips out without a comment.

"How's your wrist holding up?" Sam asks him, reminded of it by the blue-tinted ice on the parking lot as he exits the car and locks the doors.

"It's good," Dean tells him, "I want the bandage off. It's itchy. What's inside?"

"You'll see."

"It better be good."

They climb up the stairs, Sam holding Dean's hand to make sure he doesn't fall on his arm all over again now that it's healed up. Dean's impatient as he fumbles with the keys but the moment the door opens, his eyes go wide and he stops whining about it. Clumsily, he steps past Sam into the room, kicks off his shoes by stepping onto them and pulling his feet free like he was dragging them out of a swamp, and he rushes to the unpacked, naked plastic tree in the middle of the room with his whole character glowing like a second sun. He twists around and grins widely at Sam full of awe: Sam nods at him.

"I thought we could decorate it today. It's - how many days to Christmas, exactly?"

"Five," Dean breathes out.  
He drops on his butt on the carpet and shuffles through the bag of tinsel and colourful baubles and papermache birds, then clutches the roll of rainbow lights from the floor and hugs it close for a moment as his hand fishes out some small bottles of glitter from the bottom of the plastic bag.  
"Is this all... for us?"

"Yeah," Sam chuckles, "I went a little crazy in the store, I guess."

Dean turns around and stares at him.

"That's - at least the price of the skates I didn't rent," Sam adds unconvincingly, "You happy about that yet?"

A new grin stretches onto Dean's lips and he turns around again, his small fingers bending to tear apart the box of lights.

 


	9. Sneezes

* * *

 

It's dark before they've gotten the lights hung on the tree. Dean's exhausted, but he's too excited to stop and rest. They eat supper beside the tree: yogurts and some crackers for both of them, and juice to bring it all down. Then they get back to work, placing birds and baubles along the branches. It's not a big tree - in fact, it's a very small tree by any standards - but decorating it still takes an hour for the two of them. Everything just has to be perfect, and they have too much fun dangling the tinsel from the needles, and Dean with playing with the birds as if they were real. Every five minutes or so he calls Sam to look at what they're doing; to Sam, they're always just dangling there like any proper Christmas decoration on the tree should, but to Dean, they're alive and constantly active in the most fascinating of ways. Through him, Sam finally feels some Christmas spirit rising inside him.

There's a first for everything, he figures.

"Alright," he says after what feels like forever, "Are you ready?"

"Yes," Dean promises, his hand fisted into the chest of his wolf print shirt.

The plug lets out a snapping sound as Sam connects the lights to electricity. For a second, nothing happens: then, with an inaudible buzz, the tree comes to life. It fills the room with its colourful glow, and after giving it a short glance, Dean rushes to the light switch and turns every other light in the room off so that it becomes the only source of light illuminating the room. And it looks beautiful: the tinsels reflect the colours in the rainbow lights as they dance over the room's walls and mirror from the window letting out to the parking lot, and the soft golden glow of the white lights looks like stars amongst the tree's branches. Dean shifts closer and closer in slow motion until he's right there again, and he reaches into the tree to touch the lights and the tinsel, gently dragging each down to see the light change. He swallows and looks at Sam, smiling, and Sam walks over to him, gets on his knees and pulls him against himself. He nuzzles his nose into Dean's soft hair and breathes him in, feeling Dean's heartbeat against his arm where he's holding him tight.

"How do you like it?" he asks.

"I love it," Dean murmurs.  
He climbs onto Sam's lap and sits there, content, before he reaches for his juice still sitting on the floor beside them and takes a sip.  
  
"Can you read to me here tonight?"

"Are you planning on sleeping on the floor?"

"No," Dean huffs, "Of course not. I'm not gonna fall asleep. I just - I think it'd be nice."

"Well, I don't see why not, other than for my stiff knees -"

"Shut up, Sam."

"Shh. Enjoy the tree, Dean."

"I would but you're ruining it."

Sam chuckles.  
"You've always told me that that's what brothers are for," he reminds him quietly and leans his weight onto his free hand pressed against the floor.

It's a magical moment.

 

* * *

 

Sam notices the first signs before shower that evening. The sniffing that just won't go away despite the fact they've been indoors for hours, the first sneeze around 10 o'clock while he's reading about Aslan's return as they both sit beside the tree. Dean's huddled up in his blanket but he seems pale and flushed anyway, and when Sam carries him in bed, he feels hot to touch.

"Dean," he calls him gently to nudge him back to this realm, "I've got to ask you something before I let you sleep."

"Mm-hmm?"

"Can I borrow your money tomorrow for a little something?"

"What something?"

"A kettle. So that we can drink warm stuff in motel rooms that don't have one. I think this is something we should co-fund."

Dean squints at him before curling up tighter and sniffling again.

"Sure," he mumbles into the pillow, "Go buy a kettle."

"Not going anywhere right now, just making some plans. Good night, Dean."

"Night, Sammy..."

He drifts off, and Sam plants a folded paper towel under his dripping nose with a small sigh. Yeah, he should have seen this coming.

 

* * *

 

"Sammy?"  
Dean's hands are small as he paws at Sam's chest and shoulder.  
"Sammy, wake up."

The Christmas tree's lights are still illuminating the room when Sam stirs. He sits up and runs the back of his hand over Dean's cheeks and forehead - he's hot like a burning iron.

"Oh, no," he mumbles and smiles at his brother before a yawn breaks through.

"I think I'm sick," Dean whispers.  
He's shaking a little.

"Yeah, I think so too, buddy. I can't help you much before I get that kettle I talked about, but - how about some juice and a painkiller?"

"That sounds nice..."

Sam slides off the bed and pulls Dean's blanket more firmly around the boy. Then he heads to their first-aid kit again: Dean's bandage is there, rolled up and a little dirty but still usable. They've got pills for everything - antibiotics, five different brands and strengths of prescription painkillers, over-the-counter meds for every ailment, like a pocket-sized pharmacy that they carry around with them. He shovels away the stronger pills and lands his hands upon a bottle of aspirin, takes out a pill, cuts it in half and closes it inside his fist. Next, he pours the remaining juice into Dean's paper cup from earlier and brings them both to the boy sitting and sniffling on the bed.

"You wanna watch some Netflix while we wait for it to help?" he asks him as Dean takes the pill from him and fingers it for a moment before slipping one half of it on his tongue.

Dean shakes his head.  
"I'd like it if you read some more," he says instead.

He does seem too sleepy to keep his eyes open, which is a good sign: he'll fall asleep quickly enough, and Sam hopes he'll do the same himself.

"Alright," he says in a warm tone, already reaching for the tablet, "Cuddle up, cowboy. We left off on an exciting note, didn't we?"

"Mm," Dean mumbles with a smile.  
He thrusts his head against Sam's arm pit and cocoons up inside his blanket. Sam digs the orca toy between them and offers Dean another folded-up paper towel. Tomorrow, he'll get him some real napkins.

In twenty minutes, Dean's asleep again. His breathing sounds a little off, like a half-present snore on each inhale, but even though Sam's subconscious still fears this might have something to do with the spell, Dean seems to be suffering the same ailment any other kid would at this time of the year - a common cold. He's hot, but not so hot that it would be alarming, and the aspirin clearly helps the matter. Surely it would not if the illness was born from something other than a normal infection?

Sam sighs as he places the tablet back on the table. He's not sleepy anymore, and the fact doesn't surprise him in the least. His brain's in that usual state of agitation again, the one that he knows from many prior sleepless nights. It'll run its course, and leave him exhausted in the day, but with Dean sick, he expects there'll be plenty of nap time to put to use later. Carefully, he turns and curls around Dean, closing his eyes: there's no need to get up yet, sleep or no sleep. He'll stay under covers for a bit longer, if only to make sure his brother gets his rest.

Nothing changes for an hour, not for one and a half. Then, finally, sun starts climbing up: Sam sees a different hue of blue each time he peers around the room, lids heavy but mind still as alert as ever. After a while, he simply gets too restless to stay put anymore, and climbs up from the bed as quietly as he can. He spends a while sending emails here and there, asking if anyone at all would be able to get him the last ingredient, and then idles for ten minutes before it's 8am and he can finally excuse leaving the motel room. He stirs Dean just enough to let him know he'll be out for twenty minutes or so, but the kid barely wakes up to hear him out before he's out like a light again, and Sam leaves him bundled up inside both their blankets, hurries down the stairs and practically jumps inside the Impala. First, he drives to the nearest store that could plausibly sell him an electric kettle, and luckily enough, it takes him about five minutes to find and buy one. Next, he stacks up on napkins, concentrated blackberry juice and instant coffee before driving to the diner and getting their breakfast to go: Dean's not leaving the room today if Sam can help it. All in all, he's out and back again in 22 minutes, and Dean's barely just waking up when he gets back in the room.

"Where were you?" Dean asks him in a baffled, sleepy voice.

"I told you," Sam chuckles tiredly as he lays the bags down on the table, "Getting breakfast and our new kettle. You want your breakfast there, or...?"

But Dean's already sliding out of the bed. He's still rubbing his eyes when he pulls his blanket out of the bed and wanders to the table with it wrapped around his small body: it takes some effort from him to climb onto the chair, but once he's on there, he's smiling softly.

"What are we eating?" he asks and sniffs.

"Chicken curry," Sam laughs, "I know, I know, it's not really breakfast, but it'll clear your nose for a bit. You'll love it, trust me."

"I guess it can't be worse than Dad's cure-all."

"No, I think it'll be a bit more edible than that."

"It's not bad, though."

Sam smiles.  
"On Dad's scale, not that bad at all."

He hands Dean a box and a plastic fork, and sits himself down next to him; he's got a box of the same in the name of solidarity, and really, although it really isn't breakfast, it tastes good enough. Coffee doesn't go well at all with it, however, and he puts it down hoping it'll still be warm when his mouth clears of all the curry.

"So, snow day," he says.

"I guess."  
Dean lifts his gaze and parts the curtains.  
"Is it actually snowing?"

"A little," Sam tells him, and they both stare out the window into the white outside.

Then, Sam's laptop makes a sound - a new email has arrived. He pulls the thing to him and opens the mail up. A small flicker of excitement flashes in his chest: an old contact has the last herb, and he's willing to bring it to him to make up for an old debt. Immediately, Sam sends him a mail agreeing to the settlement, and in a minute, they've agreed to meet a couple days after Christmas, as long as the roads are open enough to push through. Sam hopes they will be.

"What's that?" Dean asks him, "Who's mailing you?"

He's busy wiping his nose repeatedly onto a fresh napkin: the box won't last that long.

"Robert. You remember Robert? We helped him on that wraith case some years ago. Look, Dean - I think I may have found a cure for you. I don't know if it'll work, but if it doesn't, at least it won't hurt to try."

At first, Dean's face lights up, but soon after comes the doubt, and he turns back to his chicken curry to spin his fork around in the creamy sauce. He sniffs and purses his lips before speaking.

"It sounds dangerous."

"I thought so, too, but I've triple-triple checked it. Everyone we know who knows anything about anything says it seems clean, and I agree, it should be fine. Nobody knows if it'll bring you back to your old self but everyone agrees that it at least won't make things worse."

Dean peers at him for a moment, suspicious.  
"You've told someone about me?" he asks then.

Sam shakes his head.  
"No. I'm talking about a vic, no specifics."

Slowly, Dean nods and drops his gaze back down.  
"Mmkay."

He's quiet for a moment and doesn't seem any more at ease than before, so Sam grabs his hand and holds it tight.

"It'll be alright, Dean," he promises him.

"Sam," Dean mutters then, wrestling his hand free, "Can I - be really honest with you for a bit?"

"Sure. Always, Dean."

Dean nods again. He clears his throat and sniffs and wipes his nose, then drops his fork and places his hands on his lap under the table. He's quiet for a long while before speaking.  
"What if I..." he starts, but his sentence dies out in his throat and turns into a soft, held-back sigh before forming all over again on the tip of his tongue, "What if I - what if I don't... what if I'm happy this way? I mean, not - not forever. I don't... want to be like this _forever_. But, I'm... uh... I'm - I'm happy, Sam, for the first time - I feel like - I've always felt like... things are so big and scary and I don't - I've never really felt like I'm doing that good at coping with them. But like this, like this it's - it's better. Things aren't so scary. I mean, I'm still scared."

He falls quiet for a moment and swallows thickly, but Sam lets him sort it out without interfering.

"I can't defend myself. But you seem so safe. You - you look like you've got things under control. And I've never... I've never... felt like anyone... could protect me. Not since... since Mom? But it's like - like I can trust you to keep me safe, and I - I like that. I really like the feeling of... being... this is stupid."

"No, it's not. Tell me, Dean. I want to know what you're thinking."

"It's just... I like... feeling safe, I guess. I like... not having to be in charge all the time. Not having the whole world depend on me. I'm a coward. I'm - I'm a coward, but I don't - I don't want to go back, not yet. I just want to be small again. I want to - I want to - I never got the chance, I..."

The tears both fall off at the same time and drip onto Dean's lap. Sam's up in a blink of an eye, much before he realises he's moving, but then he's already there, holding his brother tight against his chest, petting his hair.

"It's okay, Dean. It's okay. You can be small. If you want to take a little more time off, that's okay. We're not in a hurry, not if you need more time. You said you kinda like this, and I kinda like this too, alright? Really. I love seeing you happy and you've been so happy the past few days, so relaxed, I don't think I've ever seen you like that. And I'm happy that I can just - that we can hug and all that, you know? Because we've always been so reserved about it, and it's silly and it's stupid, but I really missed being close with you that way. I guess you're not the only one who just wants to feel small sometimes, heh."

Dean nuzzles his wet face into Sam's shirt and gasps quietly.

"I feel so stupid," he mumbles, "I feel weak and gross and like a big coward. Like I'm running away."

"Dean, listen. When have we last had any time off?"

"It's not - we can't, Sam, we can't. We can't afford this. People are dying."

"Dean."  
Sam pushes his brother back and holds his face, then sighs and lets go with one hand just to wipe his dripping nose with the napkin before holding him again, the napkin still in one hand.

"Dean, listen."

Dean's eyes are wide and scared, but he's watching Sam keenly, almost holding his breath.

"We can't save everybody. We can't. And we can't save _anybody_ if we don't sometimes stop and take care of ourselves first. So we take some time off to recover and get ourselves back together once in a decade. Dean, there are other hunters out there. The world doesn't rest on our shoulders, or yours. You deserve a break. If this is your break? Then so be it. We won't do the counter-spell. Not before you're ready for it."

Dean sighs nearly inaudibly. He closes his eyes and two more tears fall out, but Sam wipes them off his face with the napkin and throws it in the trash.

"It'll be there when we need it," he promises and backs off into his own chair, "The cure."  
He's smiling, and one of his hands rests on top of Dean's small one; he tightens his hold of it for a second before withdrawing and starting to eat again.  
"Thank you for trusting me enough to let me know you're not ready yet."

Dean nods ever so slightly, cheeks red as he, too, turns back to his food. He eats the rest of it in relative silence, only ever breaking it to sneeze.

 

 

* * *

 

 

It's a long day, but just as Sam thought, it gets cut in the afternoon by a very sleepy, very whiny Dean. The kid climbs onto him as he's lounging on the bed with his tablet in one hand and the other casually balancing on the headboard behind him with a documentary playing on the screen before him. Dean's still hot - he's still got some fever, enough to wear him out but nowhere near enough to be dangerous - but Sam hasn't offered him another painkiller in the hopes that his body will battle out the bug in its system faster without intervention. As a result, Dean's achy and sore and in ten different kinds of discomfort, but he hasn't asked for the painkiller either. Perhaps he's thinking the same thing, that maybe it'll be over faster if he just braves it out, or maybe he doesn't want to appear weak; whichever the reason, being sick makes him cranky.

"It hurts my ears," he groans and pushes aside the tablet from Sam's hand so that it nearly falls.

He clutches it just in time and presses it against his chest, but Dean merely sniffles as he adjusts onto Sam, his warm face replacing the cool tablet when Sam places it on the bedside table.

"Don't be a dick," Sam tells him with a grunt but brings his hand into Dean's hair and pets him despite the displeased tone of his voice, "What do you need?"

"I'm tired."

"What about a nap?"

"Mm."

Sam keeps petting him for a while in silence, but Dean seems perfectly comfortable settling to sleep right there, and eventually Sam has to budge him off.  
"Hey, kid. On your own lane."

"I want to stay here."

"Yeah, I know," Sam chuckles quietly, "But I'm tired, too, and I can't sleep like this."

With a disgruntled sound, Dean rolls off of him and curls up on top of his blanket. Sam throws his own over him and crawls underneath it afterwards, the space already heated up by Dean's temperature.

"Sammy?"

"Mm?"

"What if they get to me like this."

"Who?"  
Sam peers at Dean, who avoids looking at him and instead inspects his small fist as he opens and closes it again like he's never seen fingers before.

"The bad guys," the boy clarifies, "What if they find me when I'm sick."

"What bad guys? Dean - I've told you. No one's after us."

"I don't mean that someone's after us. I just mean that - there's stuff out there. Ghosts and - and wendigos and stuff. What if they sense that I'm sick and they come after me."

"Then I'll shoot them full of salt or torch them or whatever. You know that, Dean."

Sam takes Dean's hand and holds it, and Dean dares to glance at him and smile a little.

"Remember when we were really kids?" he breathes out and his next inhale is a little shaky.

"Somewhat, yeah."

"Dad would always protect us. Always. And even when - even when I was dying in that - in that hospital. Dad protected me then, too. When I was big, I mean. After that car crash."

"Dean..."

"Hell scares me, Sam."

Sam swallows thickly and nods.  
"I know. I've heard you, sometimes, when you sleep. You still have the nightmares."

Dean nods, too.  
"The fever makes them worse."

Sam nods again.  
"Yeah. Even when you're big, whenever you're sick it gets really bad. Did you know that I know?"

Dean looks red, but his eyes don't leave Sam's as he sighs.  
"Yeah," he says, "I know. I've always known, even before I told you I remembered what happened down there. That you could see right through me because of the nightmares, anyway."

"I couldn't," Sam says thoughtfully, "Not - not entirely, anyway. I wasn't sure. I thought - maybe you don't consciously remember, but your soul does, or something. Dean, how's it now? I mean, you're so small, but you obviously still - you remember those things."

Dean nods.

"So... it's got to be really scary now. If it's scary when you're big, it has to be... I mean, you know way, way too much for a kid. You've been through so much. And I can't help with that, I guess, I can just - I can just make sure that nothing happens to you now, and I swear that nothing will. You're safe. I'll keep you safe no matter what, you know that. But I can't take back what has already happened to you, the things you remember from before. I can't take that away."

Slowly, Dean looks away. He holds Sam's hand tighter and shivers.  
"I try not to think about the things I've - the things I've done and things... that have happened to me. I don't know... it's weird now. All the things that were normal for me. It's really scary or gross or whatever. Like... like _sex_ ," he whispers, "I - I remember - but I don't want to. I wish I didn't have any of these memories. They get all weird when I'm like this."

"Like you can't process them. Like you're not ready for them."

Dean nods again.  
"I just want to be now. I - just want today and nothing else. Everything else is scary and I don't know how to - I don't - I'm scared."

He crawls closer until he's against Sam, and Sam wraps his arm around him and holds him. They don't talk more, but they don't sleep, either; there's a long shared silence between them until Dean looks up at Sam and smiles a little.

"Can we build another fort?" he asks in a small voice, "Listen to Zeppelin and - I want pie. I want to do something nice. The fort was nice and it felt really safe in there. I liked it."

"Sure," Sam chuckles with a hint of a smile on him, "I guess we can build the fort again. And what if - what if I make some hot juice for you and you drink it while I go out and buy us a pie to share?"

Dean nods enthusiastically.  
"Yeah," he whispers and starts struggling to undo the blanket from around him, "Let's do that."

 

* * *

 

Sam brings with him a second pack of napkins, some chili-packing instant ramen, and an apple pie. It's freshly baked, not one of the store-bought ones with more preservatives than flour in them, and it cost about as much as his whole day's food budget, but he's used to fasting and tomorrow - well, he's got his coffee, at the very least. He carries all that back into the motel room where Dean's head peeks out from between the comforter's hems.

"Did you bring the pie?" he asks, and once again the tone of his voice brings to Sam's mind his older self. For that moment, he misses his brother again, although he's right there and consciously he knows it: he watches Dean for a second before laying down the groceries, and he pulls out the pie as slowly as he dares before showing it to the kid.

A wide grin spreads on Dean's face and he sniffs happily.  
"I bet I won't taste a thing," he says and wipes his nose with a crumpled-up napkin in passing, "but I'm still gonna eat as much as I can."

Sam laughs.  
"Sure, buddy," he sighs and starts unpacking the remaining things from the bags.  
When they're done, he crawls under the table with Dean carrying two sets of plastic utensils and the kettle full of hot water.

He places it away from them to avoid any accidents, then puts his phone down above the pie on the blanket-covered floor, and sets up the _On The Road_ -titled playlist full of songs that Dean hates and others that he loves. He used to listen to it while his brother was still trapped in hell, fill in those long hours in the car that was no longer home with at least the memories of what it used to be, and sometimes he imagined Dean's ghost riding along with him. Now, he looks at his brother and leans in to kiss him on the forehead. He's sticky with fever, but alive and full of slow-burning energy now despite the cold, ready to dig in and at least try very hard to taste his favourite food in the entire universe.

"It could use some sauce or at least a dollop of ice cream," Sam notes as he carves them both slices out of it.

"Nah," Dean utters, grabbing his with bare hands and ignoring the utensils completely, "'s good just the way it is."

The orca watches them eat from on top of a pillow on Dean's end of the blanket fort, and Sam finds himself wondering if they could nap there - if the floor isn't too hard, and if the space isn't too cramped. He smiles to the thought and nudges off some pie crumbles from the side of Dean's mouth.

"Tasting it yet?"

"Tasting enough," Dean manages to utter through the mass of pie inside his mouth.

Things are good, Sam realises. Perhaps they've never been better. It's an incredible realisation: the case they were on has fled them, disappeared into the winds. They lost it, yes, but it was never their responsibility to begin with. Someone will have to do it, and likely, that someone will be them - but eventually. Not right now. And in the meantime, anyone else might pick it up. The world still goes on even though they've all but stepped aside from its course, stopped pushing it along the right tracks, and nothing, so far, has gone so badly wrong that on a grand scale, suffering would have increased in direct relation to them sitting here in this blanket fort eating pie like a pair of odd but otherwise quite _normal_ people might do. And his brother, although small, truly is here with him. Right here, stuffing his face with pie; tonight, they'll sleep close to one another again, through a night that may not be as restful as either of them would prefer but still at least will be a night that is completely safe and ends in a new dawn, just as any other night will do. Day after day, this has now become their reality, and in the midst of all the weirdness, there's nothing wrong about it.

They're happy. Sam is happy - despite everything, he's got all that he needs right here. And Dean? Even now that his nose sports a plug fashioned from a wrinkly, used-up napkin, Sam doesn't think he's ever seen his brother this carefree, this relaxed, this _happy._ He radiates it, radiates a sense of safety right here where he is, that ability to settle for the small good things, the ability to enjoy himself. He's smiling, he's huffing and puffing as he makes his way through a third slice at an all too fast a pace, and Sam loves him, and he loves Sam in return, and things, really, all in all, are very good.

Only someone with no heart could complain, and Sam's heart? Somehow, it feels whole tonight.

 


	10. Growing Pains

* * *

 

"Will all of this be over when I grow up?" Dean asks.  
He's got most of him on Sam's lap, and his lower half balanced on the floor. Sam's palm circles over his swollen belly, rubbing gently.

"Doesn't have to be, I guess," Sam tells him calmly; he's drowsy after the pie, but at least he didn't eat himself to the breaking point.

Dean sniffles and pats his sore nose with another napkin. He's watching the table's bottom from underneath, at the crayon drawings left by some other kids maybe a long time ago, or perhaps just a few weeks before they got there. Sam finds it intriguing that they would have never seen them if Dean hadn't gotten caught, as neither of them would have ever crawled under the table, much less set up camp there. The comforter opens up from the middle and gives them a good view to the softly lit Christmas tree, and outside, snow is falling again: the whole view from the window is blurry with blizzard with few cars passing by in challenge of it.

"It depends on - you? I won't mind this. I won't mind... being close again, or - or being more open, or doing things just for ourselves every now and then. We could start going to the movies again. Concerts. The stuff we used to do more often before," Sam carries on.

"But it's so much harder," Dean mutters, closing his eyes, "to be like this when I'm... I don't know why. It's dumb."

"It is, isn't it," Sam chuckles wearily, "It's harder for me, too. Everything got so complicated at some point. It just - I don't know. I wish it was this way all the time. I wish we didn't hold back so much."

"Yeah," Dean says with a hint of a sigh, "Me too."

They're quiet for a bit before the kid lets out a choked laugh.

"I want more pie," he groans then, "but I can't fit any in."

"It'll be there once you've digested," Sam laughs, his palm falling flat over Dean's belly.  
His fingertips rub at his chest right under the hem of his lifted shirt in an absent manner, but he feels Dean's abs contract under his palm at the ticklishness of it, so he stops soon after.  
"How're you feeling?"

"Better," Dean mumbles, eyes still closed, "But I guess it'll get worse later, right?"

"Probably. But not if you nap enough. Feeling like it yet, champ?"

"A little," Dean agrees.

Sam pulls his shirt down and rests his palm over him again. He's so _small_ \- Sam's palm covers up most of Dean's stomach, with his fingers crawling over his side and his wrist resting over the other. He's breathing steadily, one nostril open for air to move through, and he's smiling a little. The phone's still playing music, but it's changed to the songwriter section now: it's been a while, yet Dean hasn't complained. So far, anyway.

"Could you make me some juice again? My throat hurts," Dean says then, just when Sam has drifted off into something of a half-comatose state with his back against the warm radiator behind them.

It's not as hot today as it was before, likely because the door hasn't been open the whole day and the curtains somewhat tackle the draft through the window.

"Sure," Sam promises him and scoots him off of his lap.

Dean curls up on the floor, fishes his orca toy up and hugs it close. His eyes follow Sam out of the fort, and Sam can feel him still watching his feet when he sets the water boiling. He peers down soon and nudges Dean on the nose - it's quite hard not to touch him constantly, not to be around him, not to hug him. There's something so comforting about being near him and bonding with him that Sam simply can't explain: it's like his missed his brother despite always being right there with him. As if this far, there's always been a distance between them that no longer exists, and now he's almost intoxicated with the array of potential present for them. It's somehow unbelievable how he can just go and show how much he cares without having to feel embarrassed, or worse, without embarrassing Dean. And Dean just soaks it up like the little sponge he is.

"Sammy?" Dean calls for him when he's about to pull up again.

Instead, he kneels on the floor and nods.  
"Yeah?"

"We can do the counter-spell after Christmas."

Sam's brows lift.  
"Really? I mean, you want that?"

Slowly, Dean nods.

"It's not so much that I want it," he says thoughtfully, "But I'll be ready for it. I just - want these few more days like this, and then, then we - we have to finish the case."

"Doesn't that scare you?" Sam asks.

A crooked smile crosses Dean's face and he nods again.  
"Of course it does. But I can't run from it. I have to grow up one day anyway. Besides," he adds then, smirking, "Maybe we can find out what spell they used, and make this a yearly holiday."

He winks. Despite his paleness and the softness of his features, he resembles himself quite enough for Sam to laugh.

"Sounds dangerous," he sighs and gets up from the floor to serve Dean his juice and himself a cup of instant cappucino, "but hey, if we find it..."

"I was joking," Dean's voice tells him annoyedly from underneath the table.

"I know," Sam replies casually, "But I don't know - I think we should try to look for it. Not so that we can use it, but to figure out what it is. Anyway, here's your juice."  
He drops back on the floor and hands Dean his steaming mug with the floppy plastic spoon still in it, then picks up his own cup and crawls back inside the fort.

"I wish we had like a board game or something," Dean says after a minute, pushing the cut up pie a little further away from him, "To pass the time."

"You want to watch more Netflix? Like a Disney flick or something you don't need to concentrate on that much?"

For a moment, Dean contemplates it. Then he sighs and nods.  
"I guess," he says, "Should I get the tablet?"

"Do it," Sam encourages him and sits back in relief.  
His back rubs against the radiator and he tugs his shirt down with a grimace: against bare skin, it's still hot enough to be uncomfortable.

Dean's back soon enough with the tablet. He sits next to Sam and hands him the iPad, then takes back his previous place on Sam's lap beside it; Sam searches the movies for a while before settling on _Lilo & Stitch_. He places the tablet against a pillow in front of them and moves his hand over Dean's, his arm reaching around the boy's body and his fingers wrapping around his small hand over his stomach. Dean yawns and sniffles, and Sam gives him back the napkin as the Disney logo lights up on the screen.

"I used to think that... that maybe you don't really like me," Dean mumbles as the intro plays.

Sam looks down at him and frowns a little.

"Of course I like you. Really. You're my big - my little big brother. I've always loved you, more than I think I've ever loved anybody else. Dean, you - when I was a kid, you were my hero. And in a lot of ways, you still are."

"Yeah, I... I guess I know that. But I feel like - I often feel like nobody _really_ likes me, that maybe you're just here because you have to be or you feel like you owe it to me and not because of _me_ or because you want to be here."

"The only time I ever stayed because I felt like I owed it to you was when I was a kid, Dean. I was scared and I wanted out, but I stayed for you. It was always for _you_ , though, and not just because I owed you anything, even though of course I did. You know? The only part that hurt in leaving was leaving you. But that was then. I don't want to leave anymore. And least of all I want to leave you. You're - my partner, you know, my - I don't know what to call it, really. But you're it for me. I want to - I want to do this crazy thing with you, I want to hunt with you and I want whatever comes after, I want it with you. There's not a single scenario that I want to think about that you're not a part of."

For some time, the movie rolls and they watch it in silence. By the time Lilo adopts Stitch, Dean's cutting himself a new slice of pie, even though this one is a lot smaller than the ones that came before it. Sam does the same; it just feels right to share that with Dean now.

"You really love me," Dean finally says, and he does so in such a quiet voice that Sam's mind takes a moment to register it at all.

"I do," Sam confirms, and he holds Dean's hand a bit tighter for a moment.

"That's a relief," the boy says with a hint of a smile and sniffs, "Because as long as you do, I think I'll be alright."

"You will be. We'll both be alright. Dean, things aren't all bad."

"I know. It's funny," Dean says and shifts a little, moving his arm under his head so that he can watch the movie better, "because before this, I sometimes - I often felt like... like there's... I thought a lot of bad things. I was tired all the time and sometimes I wanted to die, I guess. Not - not in the - not literally, I just - didn't want to be scared all the time. I'm still scared all the time and I guess I have to just... I guess that's... me. But I feel better now. Being small all over again has been really weird but I... I guess it made me feel better."

Sam brushes his finger over Dean's cheek and smiles, his breath stuck in his throat for a moment.  
"It's not over yet," he tells the other after swallowing down the blockage, "Dean, it's not over. You're still small and you don't have to be afraid of anything. I'm right here."

"I worry about things that might happen when I grow up again," Dean tells him, "even though I guess it's stupid."

"It's not stupid. But you don't have to, really. I'm taking care of it. We're not gonna just jump back into hunting or whatever when you get back to normal. It'll take a while to wear off, I guess, like - for you to get used to being you again. Right? So we'll still wait a little and then we've got to plan everything out, too. It'll take a while. So don't worry about it. Cross that bridge when we get to it and all that."

Dean nods.  
"Thanks, Sam," he says then and turns a glance towards his brother, smiling, "You're the best."

Sam smiles, even though he's still weak and wants to cry or at least be alone with his thoughts for a moment. Despite it, he nods; Dean needs him more than he needs his solitude now.  
"You, too, kiddo."

 

* * *

 

They're curled up down there underneath the table for a good two hours before Dean next stirs. Sam, who doesn't quite fit in there in any pose whatsoever, has become a protective circle around his brother; they're both hugging pillows, and miraculously, they've both slept. Feeling stiff and sore, Sam takes a while to get up. Dean's quicker; he's sneezing with a pitiful, tired, feverish look on him, and Sam suspects that his temperature is climbing again despite the rest. It could also be just because they're on the floor. Whatever their fort's good for, it might not be blocking out all the draft.

His neck barely bends.

"Did you really sleep?" Dean asks him with a crooked grin that still seems exhausted and a little off somehow, like he's not completely there behind it.

Sam strokes his cheek and nods with a small chuckle.  
"I'm wasted, man," he explains it.

"I bet," Dean replies with a hint of tease in his voice.  
He crawls out of the fort and sits before the Christmas tree with a small sigh, and Sam gathers their cups from underneath the table to get them both something hot to drink again. Dean's coughing a little - it doesn't sound good.

"Do you think I'll be sick on Christmas, too?" Dean asks him while he's got his back turned towards the room.

"I hope not," Sam tells him genuinely as he crosses the room to fill up the kettle again, "But if you are, well, then you are. It's not like we have to go out or anything."

"I want to get you a present, though," Dean mumbles when he resurfaces from the bathroom, "I know we don't have much money but I should get you _something_. I'm still your big brother and all."

"Well, we can drive someplace," Sam tells him.  
He snaps the kettle's power on and leans to the wall to wait for it, all the while examining Dean on the floor. The boy's playing with the fake tree's branches absently and he seems a little concerned.  
"What's on your mind?"

"Nothing much," Dean says, "and I mean that - like, I really mean that. I'm just sick and my head's all empty and weird. And my throat itches. Everything's kinda dull."

"Yeah, I know the feeling. Hey, promise to let me know if it gets worse, alright?"

Dean shrugs.  
"Yeah, I guess. I mean, it's just a cold, I can - I've had worse."  
He attempts a smile and shudders.  
"I just hate the coughing," he admits then, seeming a little timid about it.

"Yeah, me too."

"I always fear I'll throw up. I did once."

Sam huffs.  
"I nearly did, too."

"'s gross."

"Yep."

"So," Dean says with another small grin, "I guess I don't have to shower again today."

Sam catches it.  
"Huh. I guess not. You'll just have to be stinky, then."

Dean's smile widens.  
"Oh, yeah," he mumbles and turns back towards the Christmas tree.  
He prods it and bounces the plastic branch a few times before he hears the kettle pop and turns and stands up to wait for Sam to mix his juice for him.

Sam does so quietly; his mind's still on what Dean spoke before falling asleep over the movie, particularly the point about wishing for death. Of course he knew that - he's been there more than once himself, and sometimes, it still gets bad. And yet it hurts to know for certain, to have it confirmed; somehow, he'd still managed to live in denial about it this far. Now that's gone, and all he's got is just the knowledge that at least Dean's still here and he doesn't _want_ to die, not any more than Sam himself does, anyway; they're both fighters, and they're still fighting. Literally, more often than not, to save their hides from some monster or another. Making the choice, over and over again, to stay alive. For what? For each other? For themselves?

Sam doesn't know, not even as he gives Dean his cup. For this, maybe.

This is worth living for.

He brushes Dean's hair back and a part of him finally manages to feel a little bit of envy for him. Yeah, he'd like it too, being able to accept care like this. Dean cares for him, sure, he's never lacked in that. He's never lacked in hot bewerages served up for him every five minutes or as often as he pleases when he's ill. Dean's not the problem: Sam is. His own inability to let go and accept it - it's been a long while since he could just feel grateful and not guilty for another's kindness.

He mixes his cappucino listening to Dean slurp his steaming hot drink before he gets on the floor, with every last one of the chairs occupied by their fort. Dean follows him down and they try to drink for a while before Dean's quiet chuckle finally breaks the silence and he lays down his cup.

"I can't drink this," he says.

"Me neither," Sam admits, "Way too hot."

"So," Dean carries on, "You've got anything for me?"

"Huh?"

"Like, for Christmas."

"I'm trying to think of something," Sam says casually, "I promise. But with the money tight and everything, I can't guarantee it's going to be anything awesome, alright?"

"Right. But it don't _have_ to be."

"I know. Just a little something, as always."

Dean nods.  
"If I'm not sick," he says, "Can we do something cool for Christmas? Like have a snowball fight or something. I don't know. We've never really done any winter or Christmas stuff, not even as kids."

"I guess not," Sam replies, "But we can try and think of something. Just promise not to be too disappointed if -"

"Yeah. I know."  
Dean sighs.  
"This blows."

Sam nods.  
"It does, doesn't it."

"Hope you don't catch it," Dean says but he's got a little glimmer in his eyes when he looks at Sam, almost challenging and a little schadenfreude tinting the picture. Sam chuckles and pushes him gently on the shoulder.

"I bet you've drooled all over my food or something," he grunts playfully.

"You should be careful."

"I knew I can't trust you."

"Never."

"Hey, so tell me," Sam says then, "You mentioned Christmas presents. So what would you like?"  
It's a little late for it, but at least he'll know if he's bought anything that Dean would like.

Dean thinks for a moment, his brows creasing and a cough cutting him off halfway through, but then he smiles a little and reaches for his drink again, daring to sip it once more. Sam waits for him patiently, but it takes a moment before Dean finally speaks.

"Anything, I guess", the boy says carefully, "I just - I don't really care for presents. I never really did. I just - really like getting presents. It's... it's not the thing inside, really, it's... just... the feeling of having a present."

"Really?"

Dean nods.  
"Yeah, I think so. I don't - really know how to explain it."

"I think I know what you mean, anyway."

"So, what about you?" Dean asks him next, predictably enough.

And yet, Sam doesn't really have an answer for him. It takes them another lengthy silence for him to think up something that they could afford and which he'd still really want: finally, he breaks into a smile.

"I want a drawing," he says, and his voice sounds convincing enough in his own ears.  
He really does - the thought is somehow enchanting to him, exciting, almost makes him wait for Christmas already, even though it's such a small thing and he's got no idea what Dean would even come up with, or if he'd even take a request like that in account at all.

Dean frowns at him, looking sour for a minute before daring to assume Sam's being honest about it. He clears his throat and grimaces to the pain of doing so, but he's too busy battling with their conversation to pay much attention to it. Sam's happy at least about that.

"A drawing? Seriously?" Dean asks him.

"Yeah, I think that'd be a great present. Dude, you've never drawn me anything."

"It's because I can't draw."

"Nah," Sam counters; "Of course you can draw. I've seen you draw. You just pick up the pencil and make art with it. Seriously, I want something you've _made_ , not something storebought. We've never done that."

"Yeah, because it's cheesy."

"I like cheesy."

Dean squints at him for a moment before breaking into a defeated smile.  
"I know you do," he sighs and sips his juice again.  
Another shiver crosses him and he stills for a moment before placing the cup down.

"I promise to think about it."

"Thanks, Dean."

"I don't know if I can make anything, though."

"Doesn't have to be a big thing. Just - stick figures would be enough, I just - like you said, it's the feeling of getting a present, right? Not the thing itself."

It seems to alleviate some of the pressure on the kid's shoulders and he nods eagerly, daring to even look a little excited about it.  
"Alright," he says.

 

* * *

 

Sam wakes up with a jolt. It's dark again: he barely remembers falling asleep, although he does remember reading to Dean just like every night. The tablet's on the bedside table and for some reason it's the first thing he looks at, but once his mind wakes up, he realises that Dean's not there. He listens carefully as he pulls himself up, ready to reach for the gun, heart pounding as if pre-emptively preparing for the worst, but the room seems to be empty and Sam's not sure what woke him up if not the absence of Dean's warmth beside him. He remembers the kid smiling tiredly a few hours ago as he ate his dinner - some more curry noodles to cure his cold - and he remembers him playing by himself on the bed before story time. He remembers a lot of things, but not where on earth his brother is now.

It takes him a moment to spot the shivering sighs coming from underneath the table. Carefully, Sam steps out of the bed.

"Hey, Dean," he calls into the dark.  
  
His eyes are getting used to it already, and he can see a small black lump underneath the table right where their nest used to be: the Christmas lights are off to help them sleep, but Sam turns them on again now to give the room back its warm glow. The LEDs shimmer into the dark, bringing it back to colour and life, but Dean's eyeing them blankly, his lids puffy and red and his nose looking both raw and irritated and just blushy from crying. His cheeks are pink, too, but Sam's not sure if it's from the fever or not.

He sits on the floor next to the tree and beckons Dean out from underneath the table, but Dean shuffles back into the radiator as far as he can get and hugs his knees close to his body.

"I'm dead," he mumbles so unclearly it takes an eternity for Sam's sleepy brain to put the words together, "I'm dead, I'm dead, I'm dead, none of this is real."

"Hey, bud."

"No."

"Dean? You're alive. Things are okay. You had a nightmare again."

"No, no, no, _no._ "

Sam's quiet for a moment. Dean's not looking at him, he's staring blankly towards the Christmas tree beside him but Sam doubts he's seeing that either. He seems to be looking at something that isn't in this room, maybe not even in this realm, and his eyes are hollow and his pupils wide.

"Dean," Sam calls for him again when his breathing gets heavier and less controlled, "It's okay. Look at me. Dean, please, look at me."

Dean's eyes don't budge from the tree.

"I'm right here. I won't come closer before you tell me I'm allowed to, but I'm right here, and I'm not going anywhere. You're safe. This is real. What you're seeing is real. This tree is real, the lights are real, the warmth you're feeling is real. The things in your mind aren't. The things you're fearing are just thoughts and memories. Come back to me, okay?"

Slowly, Dean looks at him. He blinks and shudders and hugs himself tighter.

"How do I know?" he asks in a whisper.

"It's hard sometimes," Sam tells him, "I know. I know it's - sometimes, you just don't really trust yourself to tell the difference, right? You had a nightmare and maybe it felt more real than you're feeling right now. Maybe you're sort of - floating, or you feel like something's off, or your head has that really heavy feeling that makes you feel like you aren't real or that something's wrong with your brain or maybe it's just a warning that what you're seeing isn't real. That something's just wrong, period. But trust me, it's just your mind playing tricks on you. This is real. You're right here, with your butt on the motel room floor underneath the table, and you're sick, you've got fever, so it's okay to feel a little off. You had a nightmare and it spooked you. This is real. You're real, and you're really here. I'm real, too."

"I don't feel right."

"I know. Can I come closer or do you want to come here instead?"

Dean thinks for a moment. Then, finally, he undoes his protective curl and crawls half-way there to Sam. Sam reaches his hand towards him and strokes his cheek gently with his fingertips, causing him to flinch and sigh.

"It's okay, Dean. Not gonna hurt you. You're safe. Things are okay."

Slowly, Dean nods. He moves a little closer and sits beside Sam by the tree, and he reaches out for it and pulls down a branch to watch it bounce back up again. He's quiet for a while before swallowing thickly and glancing at Sam in a distressed manner.

"I just - I feel like everything's spinning. Like it's breaking apart. Like the - the world is - breaking apart. It feels wrong. Everything feels off."

"I know. Can I take your temperature?"

Dean nods, and Sam gets up from beside him, slowly, and walks up to the table where the thermometer sits idly beside the electric kettle. He brings it back to Dean and pulls up his arm, tucks it underneath and presses the arm close to his body again.  
"Hold that," he tells him and guides his hand to keep his arm tightly against his side.

Dean sways a little as he stares down at his feet.

"Am I dying?" he asks quietly.

"No," Sam reassures him, although the suggestion alone makes him fall ice cold, "Of course you're not. It's just a cold."

They look each other in the eye for a while before, quite soon, the thermometer beeps inside Dean's big t-shirt. Sam plucks it out and looks at it with concern, which soon fades as it shows only a low grade fever and nothing worse than that. He places it underneath the tree and cups Dean's cheek with his palm, turning him to look him in the eye.

"You'll be okay," he tells him firmly, "I bet you'll feel a lot better in no more than a couple hours. I can give you a painkiller if you want, should get you right back to sleep, too."

Dean shakes his head.  
"I'm scared," he says, as if to counter Sam's offer, and he crawls onto Sam with a sniff and sits on his lap.

Sam wraps his arms around his brother and presses his face into his hair again, hugging him close and breathing him in for a while until he feels the tension in his body relieve a little. Then he strokes his hair a few times and kisses him on top of his head before wrapping his fingers around Dean's small hand. Dean holds back, his fingers cold and weak, but at least he's present enough to do so.

"You wanna listen to Zep or watch something on Netflix, or maybe read something with me?"

Dean shakes his head.  
"I want to be here."

"Alright. That's okay, too."  
Sam holds him a little tighter again, his eyes taking in the Christmas tree beside them before he speaks again.  
"What are you thinking, bud?"

"Nothing. My head feels weird."

"Okay. It'll go away in a bit, trust me. A warm drink might help, though."

"Why does this happen?"

"What?"

"This."

"I don't know," Sam says quietly, his mouth brushing against Dean's hair again as he speaks, "but you've been through a lot for a kid, you know. Maybe it's just that."

"It happened before I turned, too."

"Yeah, I know that. It happens to me sometimes, too."

"Mm."

"You just wake up scared, right? And it feels so weird. Everything's scary and weird and feels like it's not real."

"Yeah."

"I think it's just our brains telling us we need to rest a little bit more. That things are getting overwhelming and we need to put down the breaks and take care of ourselves. I don't think we get enough chances to do that, anyway."

"But I've done nothing for two weeks. I've just been small and - and useless, and weak, and -"

"You're neither useless nor weak, Dean. You're a hero. You're my hero. It hasn't changed one bit," Sam counters him strictly, "You think you're weak if you break a bone and have to settle down for a while, too?"

"Well... yeah."

A small, weary chuckle escapes Sam.  
"I mean... I guess we both do. But it's silly," he says, "because we don't choose that. So - this is like a hunting injury. It's something that happened to you, something that was done to you, and we're just recovering from it. Doesn't make you weak or useless. Makes you human. Makes _us_ human. You always tell me to sit down and rest when I'm hurt or sick, too. You don't look at me and think I'm weak and stupid for not walking despite having two broken ribs and a concussion, right?"

"Right."

"So this is just like that, Dean. Maybe being small doesn't hurt as much as two broken ribs and a concussion, but it makes you equally vulnerable, and you need to recover and rest up until you're back to normal again."

"But I don't even _want_ to be back to normal," Dean whispers and curls up closer to Sam, "I just want to stay like this forever and forget that I was ever big at all. I just want to be like this forever and have someone look after me and I don't want to ever, ever go back to hunting again and it scares me - being big and hurting again scares me."

It gets Sam quiet for a while.

"I felt like that, too, you know," he says then, carefully, "When I first stopped hunting. I didn't want that to be my life. And, well - it still doesn't have to be. It's a choice we make every time we go out on a hunt. It's just a choice, Dean."

"People depend on me."

"No, really, it's... not that simple. Whether or not we're around, people will get hurt, and others won't, and others will get help. We're factors, but if we drop out, someone else will take our place."

"But the people that we would have saved don't get saved and they get hurt and they're scared, too, and they might die."

"I know."  
Sam presses his forehead against Dean's head for a while and breathes in and out slowly before continuing.  
"I know. But, look, Dean - Mom retired. Do you ever blame her for choosing a different life?"

"No."

"So why would you blame yourself if you wanted out and chose to do it? Mom could have saved a lot more people if she'd never dropped out. Maybe - I don't know, maybe she'd still be alive if she'd kept hunting. Is it her fault that she's not?"

" _No._ "

"So - why would you blame yourself?"

"Because - because I'm different."

Sam holds him tighter for a moment.  
"How are you different? Are you less valuable, less important, than Mom or some other hunter who settled down instead, who said enough is enough? If you said, tonight, that enough is enough - why would that make you worse than anybody else?"

"I can still do this."

"How?"

"I just - when I grow up again, I'll be... I'll be me."

"Yeah. But that's not tonight. So don't worry about that tonight. Right now, you're not hunting. You can't save people right now, and if you want to do it tomorrow, well, that's tomorrow. But tonight, you can't. You just can't. And the only thing you can do is accept that, and it doesn't make you worse than anybody else who had to make that choice."

Dean shifts. He's quiet for a long while until a small sobs alerts Sam to the tears that are rolling down his cheeks, and he slides his arm underneath Dean's knees and brings him around on his lap so that his back is resting over his other arm and his legs over Sam's thighs. He doesn't want to look at Sam and stares at the table instead, but Sam strokes his cheek and wipes away the tears and holds him against his chest, making sure he's aware of him being there at every passing moment, of him accepting him the way he is, even if Sam's got no more words to assure him with.

"It's alright, Dean," he repeats instead, "You're alright. You're important and you're just _as_ important as anybody else."

"I want to sleep," Dean mumbles and hides his face into Sam's shirt, "I just want to sleep and never wake up."

"Shh. Don't say that, Dean. Don't - don't say that."

"I'm tired of being scared all the time. I'm tired of everything."

Sam feels the burn in his eyes but decisively ignores it. Instead, he runs his palm over Dean's body and holds him tight for a long while, trying to battle with his breath to not cut off on him, trying to force his body not to let out the sob and show just how much those words hurt him, because he can't do that now: he's got to be strong for Dean.

Just like Dean's always, always been strong for him, too.

"Things will be better in the morning," he breathes out shakily, "They always are."

Dean doesn't say anything, but his fist wraps up in Sam's shirt and he nods almost unnoticeably.

"I'd really - I'd be really happy if you took that painkiller and had some juice, Dean, just to bring the fever down so you can sleep."

"Can we watch Netflix?"

"Sure, buddy. That's still an option."

Dean nods again.  
"I'd like that," he says and sighs heavily, but neither of them move for a very long time afterwards - not before they're ready, and the moment before has passed far enough behind them for them to move on from it again.

 


	11. Christmas

* * *

 

Dean's better in the morning. He's still tired, a little off and distant, but he's smiling nonetheless. They dare to shower together, as either the aspirin or whatever rest Dean got throughout the night has brought his temperature down to a safe level: afterwards, they pack up in the Impala and head off to the diner. Dean gets bacon, just as he wants, and Sam eats some more porridge. Although they both dread it, the fever doesn't seem to be coming back, and they spend the day in relative comfort inside the motel room playing with apps on the tablet and drawing and simply being together. The things Dean's said not once but twice about how he really feels inside haunt Sam, and he tries to give him as much attention and affection as he possibly can, yet it seems that mostly Dean's just happy to be around him. He's happy to be close, happy to talk even when Sam's got nothing to say back to him, and everything that Sam suggests they do either seems to be his favourite thing just because Sam's doing it with him, or at least it's never the worst.

After sunset, which comes very early this late in December, the glow of the Christmas tree lights up the room and no other light is necessary as they settle in for a movie. They've both got hot drinks on them, and Dean's eating his cough drops like any other candy even though Sam tries to warn him that they'll mess up his stomach. He finds that hilarious, somehow, like any kid would find the prospect of farting up the room just to annoy their siblings: still, Sam takes the bag from him before he gets too far into it, just because he still remembers how bad it felt to have an upset stomach before his body got used to all sorts of discomforts. Someone has to be the adult, he thinks with a crooked smile.

After a bed-time story, they go to sleep at 9:30pm. That same evening counts the end of Dean's cold, and even though he still sniffles and coughs, the fever never comes back again. For Sam, it's likely a bigger relief than it is for Dean, who never seemed quite that bothered by his illness. Recovery, for certain, means that the cold will not turn deadly.

 

* * *

 

Christmas comes with yet more snowflakes cast down from a heavy curtain of clouds covering up the sunshine. The diner is quiet that morning, but still open at the very least, and the brothers both stack up on a hot breakfast: bacon, eggs, a small cup of porridge, hot chocolate for Dean and a tall coffee for Sam. In the newspaper, Sam spots an advert for something he's sure Dean will enjoy, perhaps even more than skating, and once more he tears out the part and tucks it in his pocket, making a mental note for himself to get them packed inside the Impala around three in the afternoon. Dean still wears his scarf: he needs it more than Sam does, what with his throat still feeling sore especially in the morning and the evening, but Sam doesn't really miss it. He likes the prickle of cold weather against his skin - it's rare they spend the holiday season anywhere quite this cold. It just never seems to work out for them that way. More often than not, they seem to migrate south like a pair of birds seeking warmth from the cold rains and murky darkness of the winter season, but it seems mostly because monsters this far up north appear to hibernate or travel down south to escape the cold. Whatever the reason, snow, especially snow this thick and crisp and idyllic, is a rare experience for the two of them.

Its magic still hasn't worn off for Dean, either. With his energy returning to him, he's balling up snow again here and there and throwing it at unsuspecting objects on the way back to the car and then once more on the way up to their motel room. He seems delighted each time the snowball hits a hard surface and explodes into a round snowy splatter upon it, sticking to it; it gets him grinning and glowing, and Sam wishes they could stay and have another snowball war outside, just for Christmas. Dean's health doesn't allow it, however - he seems a little downcast when they move back indoors, as if the same thought has occurred to him as well, but Sam knows that once they go out... well, he'll be cheered up for certain.

The most reliable part of Christmas is the fact that there'll always be the same set of programs on. After breakfast, they cuddle up under a blanket to watch the same old movies that played already when they were both children, and for the while, neither of them speaks. It goes on and on with no interruption, no bad news to break apart the flow of holiday cheer, and while it's still nauseating to Sam who's never cared much for it, he's happy to see Dean's excitement and anticipation grow like any child's would. They haven't talked much about presents, not even when Dean went out with some cash Sam had given him from Dean's own wallet so that he could buy Sam a gift, nor had they spoken about it after Dean had worked on wrapping it up while Sam had taken a walk. What Sam does know, however, is that Dean knows to expect something: he keeps giving glances to the tree as if expecting gifts will simply appear underneath it from thin air.

When Sam announces that they're leaving for a surprise, he lets Dean get out the door first. With a quick sweep, he pulls out the presents from under the bed and behind the boxes, and he sets them by the tree with the oddly-shaped gift that Dean's wrapped up for him. He doesn't have time to set them out in any aesthetic manner, but as long as they're under their fake tree and they still look like presents, he figures it'll have to do: retaining the surprise once they return from their trip is more important than the way the whole thing looks, he decides.

He leaves the room quickly and closes the door beside them with Dean giving him a suspicious look.

"I couldn't find the keys," Sam tells him with an apologetic grimace.

"If you'd lost Baby's keys -"

"Yeah, yeah, I know. You'd never give them to me again."  
Sam hops on the first step down.  
"C'mon, I want us to be there early."

"Where's _there_ anyway?" Dean asks, his suspicion turning for curiosity.

"A little out of town, not that much; you'll see."

"Why are we going out of town? It's Christmas."

"Because," Sam huffs as they cross the parking lot once more, "I really want to do this thing."

"What _thing_ \- Sam. Come on."

"I can't spoil a surprise."

"Ugh. I hate you."

"Get in the car," Sam laughs and opens the driver's door for Dean, already quite used to him rather crawling over the driver's seat to the other one than ever using the appropriate door for it. That way, Sam figures, Dean will never lose ownership of the spot - he's just giving it over for the time being.

The leather's cold when he sits behind the wheel, but it's always felt welcome, and it does so now as well. He's excited and a little nervous for no reason whatsoever: what they've got ahead of them should be perfectly harmless and an experience they'll both remember for a long time.

"Let's get going, then. You hungry? We can drop by the diner and pick something up for the drive."

"Not really," Dean tells him, "Maybe after."

"Alright."

 

* * *

 

They drive a while, and on the icy roads it's slow going. Every now and then Dean still tries to get Sam to slip their destination, but he's set on not doing so. At first, Dean suspects they're headed for the ice rink again, but after they pass it, he's no longer so sure. He keeps his face almost glued to the window, staring out at the slowly dimming horizon as it starts growing more and more forest and field and the mountains turn bigger as they head towards the rural parts surrounding the town. After thirty minutes of driving, a farmhouse grows into sight. A couple dogs bark at them from a pen as they cross through the open gates, but there are other cars parked around, and between the large stables and the house itself, a few groups of people have gathered near a makeshift outdoors kitchen handing out food. There's a big, glowing Christmas tree, and a big man in a Santa costume sits beside the open stables surrounded by visitors: a child, a boy a little younger than Dean, sits on his lap smiling wide as Sam and Dean climb out of the car.

"Where are we?" Dean asks him, but Sam just takes his hand and walks him past the Santa; he leads him towards a candle-lit queue of some six people or so just when a sled pulled by two horses stops by it.

"I thought we'd go for a ride," he finally tells Dean in a conspiring tone, "Let's grab hot chocolates and queue up, alright?"

"A ride? Like in - in that sled?" Dean asks him, eyes wide.

He looks even smaller huddled up inside two shirts, a hoodie, his beanie and a giant scarf, and Sam grins at him as he nods.  
"Yeah. You wished they'd have that at the winter festival but they didn't, and then I spotted this on the newspaper - they're apparently doing it every year, putting together a small event for families. There are 16 horses here, we can go look at them inside later, and they have four sleds that take visitors for tours in the surroundings. It sounded cool, so..."

"Are we really, really doing this?"

"Why not?"

They've stopped now, near the midway point between the two queues - one for the hot drinks, and the other for the sleds. Dean's still watching his brother with that same shocked look, but it's starting to fade out and Sam's almost certain he can spot the excitement brewing inside.

"I just - isn't it expensive?"

"Not expensive enough to stop us from doing it anyway," Sam says, winking at him, "But really, it's just a few dollars per ride. Three more for hot chocolates. I think our budget can take that, Dean. Don't worry about it. You know me, I wouldn't bring you here if I wasn't sure we can afford it."

Now the excitement's there.  
"Can I touch the horses?" Dean asks.

"Do you want to? The last time you were around horses -"

"No, I want to."

Sam chuckles.  
"Alright, I think we can arrange that. But first, the drinks."

"Yeah."

There are three groups in the queue for drinks and food before them, but two of them head for the Santa next and one family seats themselves on a log to watch the tree together: the mother arranges her family to a group selfie in front of it. Sam's own phone burns inside his pocket, and he fingers it nervously as they step forwards to order. With drinks in hand, they head for the next queue: it's now four people shorter, with a young man and a woman still standing in line before them. Another car pulls up on the parking lot beside the large fenced area all muddy with hoofprints, and Sam watches the children unload themselves first from inside, their excited shrieks echoing in the blue afternoon. Dean's breathing forms small clouds in front of him and Sam reaches down to tug his scarf further up his face until it covers him to the mouth. A sled pulls up in front of them and the couple climbs in, and soon enough they stand in the front of the now once more six people long queue. While he watches the commotion happening behind them, Dean has eyes only for the tracks left in the snow: he's peering into the distance, waiting for the next sled to appear from behind a hilltop, and he's jumping up and down as if unable to stay still at all. Finally, a dark spot appears in the distance. With eight people now behind them, a woman standing in the front calls Sam and Dean forwards.

"Two people?" she confirms with a smile.  
She's around 19 or 20 years old with long dark curls framing her chill-blushed face, and she looks happy to be there as she takes their four dollars and helps them into the sled.

Dean stays a little behind, unwilling to climb in.

"Can I say hi to the horses?" he asks shyly, surprising Sam, who's already settling into the seat.

"Of course you can," the woman tells him, exchanging quiet looks with Sam to make sure he's alright with it, "Come with me."

She takes Dean's hand and leads him to the front while the young man holding the reins exchanges holiday greetings with Sam. Dean's a little shaky when he reaches his hand out to touch the muzzle of the first horse: they're both tall and toffee-brown, the other with a hay-coloured mane and tail, the other with dark brown. They have fluffy feet with clumps of snow sticking to them, and they sniff at Dean eagerly as the woman hands him something; Dean offers his hand up to first the other, then the second, and they both eat the mystery items from his palm, making him giggle breathlessly.

"This one's called Acorn," Sam hears the woman tell Dean, "and this one's Coco; they're both girls. Acorn's eight years old, Coco's only five, and she's still a bit wild."

"I think they're cool."

"They are cool, aren't they? Have you ever been on a sled ride before?"

Dean shakes his head.

"You're going to love it. Let's get in, okay?"

"Yeah."

The woman helps Dean into the sled and as he sits next to Sam, Sam wraps him up with the heavy, thick, warm blanket left on the seat for them.

"Ready to go?" the man in the front asks them.

"We're ready," Sam confirms as he gives Dean back his hot chocolate.

The sled nudges forwards and the ride begins: they leave behind the stables and enter a path leading along a small farm road towards the forest. The newspaper advertised the ride to take around twenty minutes, and the path they're following is lit by lanterns here and there. Dean's still shaking, and Sam pulls him closer just in case it's with cold, but Dean looks at him with the happiest expression Sam's ever seen on him the moment their bodies collide underneath the blanket, and he breaths out another puff of white mist before leaning close to Sam and nudging him down.

"You're the best," Dean whispers into his ear and nuzzles up closer, "Thank you, Sammy."

"Don't mention it. Just enjoy it, kid - you've earned it."

A small smile lingers on Dean's face as he settles into a comfortable position. In secret, Sam pulls out his phone; he's smiling wide when he puts it back in his pocket. They're headed into the forest now, with the lanterns still lighting up the path there, each either planted in the snow or hung on the trees instead. The forest itself hums with a gentle breeze, shedding snow on them along with the gently falling flakes from the sky. The weather's clear enough still, but the sun's setting quickly and drowning the scenery into darkness. It brings a sense of magic to the their ride, and the sound of the sled moving on the snow is something that feels safe and comfortable for Sam. The blanket around them is thick enough to trap most of their warmth underneath and it's hard to feel the chill with a hot drink and the weight of the blanket on them, and Dean's radiating his own warmth towards Sam.

"How's your throat feeling?" Sam asks him, nudging him gently to get him out of his awestruck state.

"'s fine," Dean tells him, shooing him.

He concentrates on the slowly passing scenery as they move over a stream: it still trickles through its course, in places covered by a thin layer of ice and elsewhere flowing freely without cover. The bridge they cross over is wooden and seems old and unused - it wouldn't hold under a car, and Sam wonders if this trail is now used for riding and hiking rather than any other form of traffic. The forest surrounds them now, and the wind whistles quietly in the thick branches of the trees hanging low with the weight of snow on them. The sounds of the horses are muffled by the snow, and it almost feels as if they're travelling through a naturally formed tunnel. Dean's holding his cup tightly but seems to have forgotten he could be drinking it; he doesn't let out a sound until the edge of the forest looms ahead of them once more, opening up to the snow-covered fields or meadows that create a vast open space between the mountains. The horses pull along in a gentle fashion, clearly used to working this path, and Sam finds himself quite relaxed there, his back sinking into the pillows behind them. It's so nice that there's not a single part of him that regrets coming here, and every now and then he hears Dean draw breath or sigh in awe, and they're sipping their hot chocolates as the forest falls behind them and the white takes over. The ground is even for a long, long distance in each direction: in the north, the mountains take over, and the blanket of forests over their sides now seems white rather than dark in colour. Ahead, a series of gently sloping hills rises, and Sam knows they'll be turning back from there. Around them, the lanterns flicker peacefully, each illuminating a patch of snow around them like fireflies caught on a white sheet. Dean's beanie sports a starry pattern of snowflakes on it, and Sam feels the chill biting at his ears and nose. He reaches a hand over Dean's face and pinches the tip of his nose playfully, and Dean smacks at his hand, grinning.

"Stop," he mumbles, leaning away to peer down as they move through the snow beneath.

All in all, the ride lasts maybe twenty-three minutes. As they move down the hill towards the queue again, another sled is visible in the distance for a moment before it disappears into the forest ahead. Dean whimpers as they take to the pathway leading down, and Sam notices his own hand over Dean's, holding it firmly.

"I don't want it to end yet," Dean whispers to him as if afraid the driver will hear him.

"It's okay," Sam reassures him, "We'll go in the stables after, and maybe get some chocolates from the Santa, if there's any left."

"Mm. But I still don't - I want to stay for another ride."

Sam's chest aches as his finger slides over Dean's knuckles.  
"Next year, maybe," he tells him gently, and Dean whimpers again.

They climb down from the sled, Sam feeling stiff and Dean mostly unwilling. They don't speak again as they head for the stables, but inside them, Dean's mood takes a turn for the better. It's warmer there, with heaters working to keep the temperature suitable for the horses indoors, and some of them are eating quietly while others peer out of their stalls, some curious about the incomers and others making soft noises or reaching at one another. There are two women inside, with one holding a woven basket in her hands: they spot the two of them, and the woman with a basket moves towards them. There are a few other people inside, too; two little girls with their father are petting a horse at the far end, and a mom with her son are walking quietly through the stables watching the horses.

"Would you like to give the horses some treats?" the woman asks Dean, kneeling in front of him and shaking the basket full of vegetables cut into small, snack-size pieces. Sam figures those were the things that the woman by the sled gave Dean before, but it doesn't hold Dean back from clutching another fistful before thanking the woman breathlessly and toddling forwards to the first horse in sight.

The woman smiles at Sam and Sam smiles back at her before moving after Dean: they make their way slowly through the stalls, with Dean feeding one or two vegetables to each horse. He runs out of treats before they're done with the whole stable, and returns to the woman for a few more bits of carrot. Afterwards the chilly, fresh winter air smells precious to Sam, whose nose would prefer not to spend another while inside the stable's hay-and-horse smelling air. They stand there with Dean puffing with excitement again for a minute or so before heading into the crowd surrounding the guy in a Santa costume. Everywhere is filled with a pleasant, cheerful sound of quiet chatter and children's voices, and underneath the Christmas tree, the couple from before is kissing.

Dean seems rather shy when it's his turn to walk up to Santa Claus: he mumbles and refuses to look him in the eye, but snatches the chocolate from him nonetheless. He seems satisfied and happy as they sit down for a moment to eat their candies, and Sam watches the surroundings and once more makes sure to keep this moment with him forever, to have all these sounds and smells and the feel of the crispy cold air upon his skin intact to eternity. Somehow, he's sure that these moments, these small moments he's spent with his suddenly smaller brother, are moments that'll end on his reel of fond memories in Heaven, and some part of him is already looking forwards to viewing them again in silence, even if it seems morbid to long for death just to relive a moment he's already living right now. He looks down at Dean and his chocolate-dotted lips and he chuckles quietly as he reaches into his pocket for a napkin. Dean scrunches his nose when Sam wipes off the chocolate from around his mouth, then breaks into a satisfied small smile.

"I'd really like a burger right now," he says then with some confidence.

"A Christmas burger, huh."

"Yeah. A cheese-bacon burger."

"Do you ever have any other kinds of burgers?" Sam asks him.

Dean shrugs.  
"Sometimes," he says, but Sam's not so sure.

"Come on, then. Let's get back to the car. The best part of Christmas is still ahead, remember?"

A strange, hissing sound leaves Dean as a hopeful and a little surprised grin spreads onto his face.  
"Presents?"

"Presents," Sam confirms with a laugh.

"Oh, yeah. Let's go. Forget the burger."

"Yeah, I'm forgetting the burger, alright. But we're still making a stop - we need a proper Christmas dinner, don't you think?"

"Whatever. Presents!"

 

* * *

 

Sam and Dean make two out of seven people in the diner. They don't have to wait for their order for a very long time, either, even though they order proper meals - or as proper as one can expect to get at a diner. The scent rising from the bag as they return to the car and drive back to the motel is delicious, and Dean promises to sit down at the table with Sam for the meal even if all he wants to do is start unwrapping his present.

When Sam opens the motel room's door, Dean lets out an audible gasp. He stumbles indoors, kicks off his shoes and falls on his knees in front of the tree, looking at the presents under the it. He seems perfectly happy with the two that he knows Sam's gotten for him: it's been their tradition to get a pair of gifts for each other, often some sweets and a necessity they'd have to buy anyway, such as a roll-on or shaving cream, some oil or even some vitamins as Dean once gave Sam, figuring he'd prefer something healthy for once. And sure enough, it was put to good use, much like any other gift they'd ever given each other. As Sam watches him, he takes his own present to Sam and places it on top of Sam's gifts to him, making a small pile. They watch that pile together for some time until Sam finally closes the door behind him and makes a sound.

"Take off the hoodie and let's eat," he chuckles, "I'm starving - and I bet you don't want to wait a moment longer than you have to, either."

"Okay," Dean replies instantly, jumps up from the floor and hangs his things on the back of the chair. He takes off his sweaty undershirt, and as Sam sets things on the table, he gets back into his freshly-washed girl clothes, apparently finding them more festive than whatever else he's got. He climbs onto the chair next to Sam's and holds out his paper plate much before Sam's settled in, and Sam decides to humour him, serving him creamy chicken sauce and rice from one container, mashed potatoes from another, and steamed carrots and peas from the third. It's close enough to home-made food, even if nothing about it is festive or particularly relevant to Christmas.

"Hey," Sam hushes Dean when he sticks his fork into the food, "Wait up. Let me sit down first."

"I'm _starving_ ," Dean moans.  
His chair creaks when he leans back in it, both feet kicking at thin air underneath.  
"Sit down quick, Sam."

"I'm doing my best," Sam laughs, filling up his own plate before taking a seat.  
"Okay. Hey. Dean. _Dean._ "

"Yeah?"  
Dean looks at him, looking partially annoyed, partially just curious.

"Merry Christmas, big brother," Sam smiles at him, and something in Dean seems to melt.

He smiles widely, nods and carves up a big pile of food on top of his fork.  
"Same," he says and stuffs his mouth.

The food tastes good - for its price, anyway - and for a while they eat with good appetite in full silence. Outside, the snowfall is picking up again, and thick, heavy clumps of flakes drift down from the skies, illuminated by the street lights around them. The world out there is silent, but holiday music beats quietly in an adjacent room: Sam can't decide which song it is, but the soft tones of bass echoing through the structures along with bursts of laughter of people who are all safe, warm and happy tonight make him feel perfectly at home here. He watches his small brother when Dean doesn't notice him doing so, and he's got this dumb, soft smile on him as he does so. A part of him misses this already, much like he missed the moment at the farmhouse event earlier, and he's not sure if he's quite ready to leave behind the time they've shared with Dean these past couple weeks in this room. It all feels so right, as if this is exactly as things should be, with the fever no longer haunting Sam's dreams and Dean's every waking hour, and with the witches and all monsters gone from, it seems, their world altogether. With the warmth and the love they've shared - it hurts to let it go. But just the same, Sam knows Dean's both as ready and not ready to move on as he'll ever be. Perhaps when he does, they'll find some of this time in the future as well: it's changed them, somehow, even if Sam isn't quite sure how just yet.

Finally Dean catches him watching, and they share a smile.

"'s good," Dean tells him, poking at the food before taking another big forkful of it.

"Yeah, it is, isn't it?" Sam replies absently.  
He lifts his hand on the table, palm up, and Dean places his free hand in his. They keep eating like that, hands joined inbetween them, until their plates are empty and the containers are mostly so as well. Then and only then does Dean take back his hand: he leaves his seat, too, stepping softly onto the motel room floor. He spins around and looks at Sam, smiling brightly.

"Is it time yet?" he breathes with excitement, and all Sam can do is nod as he stands up after Dean, ready to dig into the treasure waiting underneath the tree.

They move there together and sit on the floor beside the small pile of presents, and Dean picks one up and quite ceremoniously hands it over to Sam.

"This is for you," he tells Sam, as if Sam didn't know it or simply couldn't count the evidence to come to that conclusion.

Sam's excited as he takes it from Dean. It's heavy and hard, but the top of it feels wrinkled and circular: he's not sure what to make of it as he places it on the floor beside him. Next, he picks up one of Dean's presents from under the tree, examines it in his hands, then picks up the next and does the same for that one, too. Then he nods and winks at Dean.

"These are yours," he tells him, as if Dean didn't know that.

A gasp leaves Dean's lips as he reaches for his presents, the other lumpy and weird and the other soft and neat. Together, they start unveiling their gifts. The first thing to fall out of the wrappers is Dean's new green scarf: he grabs it, spreads it to its full length which is much longer than his arms can measure, and he wraps it around his neck, all the while beaming at Sam.

"Thanks, Sam, it's cool," he says, as if that scarf was the best thing he'd ever gotten.

Sam just nods at him, a lump in his throat and a piece of tape stuck to his thumb from his partially unwrapped gift. He watches Dean tear open the present full of gingerbread and candies: the boy's practically jumping without ever lifting up his butt from the floor when he finds the new pack of cards from between the sweets, and after examining it for a second, he stuffs some chocolates into his mouth. Then, suddenly, he freezes and turns his gaze to Sam and his present.

"Open it?" he suggests timidly through the muffling mass of sweets in his mouth.

Sam nods again and turns back to his present. He unwraps it with shaky hands, bringing out a plastic bag with a single roll of rainbow bacon inside. It's nesting perfectly in the middle of a gingerbread-scented candle in a glass cup, and the candle's sweet scent lifts from the wrappers into the air and fills it together with the real gingerbread sitting in an open bag on Dean's lap. They watch each other and Sam tries to swallow down the lump, but it refuses to budge, and in the end he simply reaches across the torn wrappers and the presents and hugs his brother: they stay like that forever, with time ticking by as the song in the adjacent room dies out and changes for another. Dean holds onto his clothes tightly, and his breath shakes a little, and Sam feels like he's about to break down just the same. When they finally part, Dean's smiling, but he still wipes his eyes dry and sniffles a little, letting out a dry cough afterwards as if trying to mask that sniffle as nothing but the aftermath of the cold.

"Do you like it?" he asks from his knees, his voice barely more than a whisper, "I didn't know what to draw, so I couldn't do it, but I thought..."

"I love it, Dean," Sam promises; "Thank you."

Dean nods. For a minute, they're quiet; Sam reaches into the pack of gingerbreads and takes one, and he gnaws on it while watching the Christmas tree with Dean. Then Dean climbs up, holding his bag of candies, and he tugs at Sam's shirt.

"Come watch TV with me?"

"Of course."

 


	12. Journey's End

* * *

 

Dean sits on Sam's lap, and Sam leans against the headboard, and they eat candy and chocolate and gingerbread and drink hot juice together. One movie changes for another, and they watch two without a break; afterwards, they head for the shower, and take their time enjoying the hot sprays and throwing foam bombs at one another. Sam hopes the sound of Dean's laughter will never fade again, and that this Christmas will stay with them - he expects it to add into the list of memories that'll wait for him in the end, and the thought makes him smile. He rubs Dean dry with a fresh towel and Dean changes back into his giant, baggy sleep t-shirt. Sam follows his lead, putting on a pair of new black boxer-briefs and a dark grey v-neck. He's tired to the bone, and Dean looks the same, but they're still both too caught up in the celebration to sleep, so once more Sam picks up his tablet and starts reading. He reads and reads until midnight, when Dean suddenly budges; he sits up, rubs at his eyes, stares into the distance for a little while before turning a rather melancholic smile towards Sam.

"Could we put my bed back to where it was?" he asks.

Sam lifts his brows. It takes a moment for the foreboding to settle in: when it does, he lets out a small gasp and feels a lash of aching pain in his chest, but he smiles through it and nods.

"Sure, buddy. Help me out?"

Together, they pull the beds apart once more and return Dean's bed against the wall with a bedside table separating the two of them. Sam watches the boy curl up and sits down on the side of his bed for a moment before tucking him in: he kisses him softly on the cheek and strokes his hair, smiling.

"Everything alright?" he asks, and Dean nods, smiling a little.

"Yeah," he says, "I - Sammy?"

"Yeah?"

"I, um."

Sam chuckles, patting Dean's back through the blanket.  
"You, too," he tells him, knowing that the words _I love you_ have never crossed his brother's lips in any other form.  
"Go to sleep, Dean. It's been a really long day." 

Dean nods again. He closes his eyes with a soft sigh and Sam stands up again - he turns off the lights before crawling under his own blanket, and as he closes his eyes to the gentle glow of the Christmas tree, he misses Dean's warmth beside him so badly that it aches within him.

Still, despite that void where his weight should rest, Sam falls asleep.

 

* * *

 

The next morning, the whole world is quiet. No cars, no wind, no chatter or the sounds of TVs from the adjacent rooms - only the sound of water bubbling inside the electric kettle wakes Sam up. He lifts himself up on his elbows and tries to locate the sound, his eyes puffy and sleepy, but his stomach jumps at the sight of a man sitting by the table, watching him.

Dean's smiling: it's a softer kind of a smile, a greeting, and Sam shivers as he sits up, his blanket falling onto his lap. It really is him - tall, broad-shouldered, still wearing the same t-shirt as every night for the past weeks but now with soft grey sweatpants, the same kind that Sam wears but in a darker colour, covering his legs. His toes bend against the floor and he's sitting in a spread, relaxed pose with one arm resting on the table, and next to him are the gingerbreads from last night and two paper cups set ready for coffee. He doesn't seem to know what to say any more than Sam does, so they just look at each other, and tears prickle at Sam's eyes as he finally stands up and walks decisively to his brother. He practically collapses into the hug, and Dean wraps his arms around him and they hold each other, Sam pressing his face against Dean's shoulder with his fingers fisting into the back of his shirt, and his breath comes shaky and uneven as he holds Dean against him, feeling his heart beating against his chest as fast-paced as his own.

"Hey there, little brother," Dean mumbles into him, "Seems like you missed me, huh."

"You have no idea," Sam manages to push out, finally separating from the hug and falling back into a chair instead. He's looking at his brother like he's never seen him before, and something about him even seems different than he remembered, as if he's somehow forgotten the exact details over the past few weeks. Finally, he manages a smile and a chuckle, but he still jumps to the snapping sound of the kettle turning off.

"Care to pour it for us?" Dean asks him with a crooked grin, and Sam nods, choked, before picking up the kettle.

He pours water into the cups that already contain the powder for instant coffee, and they mix the two together in silence as Sam tries to get his breath back in order.

"You - what - are you...?"

"I'm okay, if that's what you're trying to ask me," Dean confirms with a laugh.  
He shrugs then, blows a puff of air against his steaming hot coffee and plants it back on the table, seeming lost in thought for a second.  
"Kinda embarrassed, kinda confused, kinda happy to be myself again and kinda not, if that makes sense." 

"Yeah. Yeah, I..."

Sam just doesn't have the words. He does the same thing as Dean did, picking up his coffee and blowing into it for the lack of any better action to cover up how awkward he feels, but it's scalding hot and no amount of blowing will fix that, so he places it back on the table.

For a while, they're both quiet. Then, from behind the open but powerless laptop, Dean picks up the toy pony and places it between them on the table. He turns it around before leaving it there, and he looks at Sam with a serious expression.

"I just - wanted to thank you," he says, and Sam hears him choosing each word with care, "for - for everything these past weeks. Alright? I don't - I don't want to talk about it, but I remember everything, and - and I just - Sam, you did - you did good. With me. With - the things I put you through. Heh."

"No, Dean, it was - you would have done the same. You - you _did_ do the same for me, in a way, when I was little."

Dean nods.  
"Still," he says then, "it's not quite the same thing. Anyway, I - I just wanted you to know that even if we'll never talk about this again and we _won't_ , that - that I appreciate it, and everything you did to - make sure I stayed safe. I mean... yeah. That. And - and yeah. So, thank you." 

Sam smiles, but the corners of his mouth tremble like mad and he still finds it hard to speak.  
"Yeah. You're - I mean - it wasn't - I'm glad that... that it - that you're... back, but it wasn't - I mean, it's -" 

"Yeah," Dean cuts him off with a chuckle, "Yeah, I get it."

"You weren't - it wasn't that bad. For me. I don't know how it was for you but I - I mean, it was, I mean," Sam breathes out.  
The words just aren't coming. 

"Yeah, alright," Dean says with a grimace now, "Let's drop the subject. So, how about we hunt some witches next?"

It's Sam's turn to grimace.  
"Slow down there," he chuckles, "I haven't even had coffee yet, I'm not ready. Look, we both need a couple days." 

"I don't?"

"Yeah, alright, but I do. I need to get back to this. I'm just not ready to go out on a hunt right away. So give me a break. A few days, two or three, let me adjust back to this. Even if you're the world's best adapted guy who got zapped back into childhood and then up again overnight, _I'm_ not that fast."

A small smile lingers on Dean's lips as he watches steam rise out of his cup of coffee. Then he nods with a quiet sound and brings his fingers around the cup, perhaps to warm them; the room's quite chilly this morning, even if the radiator underneath the table is beaming hotly against Sam's feet.

"Alright," he finally says, bringing the cup against his lips and sipping the drink despite the burn that has to follow soon after, "Two or three days, and then we gank some b-witches. Witch-bitches."

"Alright, shove it," Sam grunts - it feels weird to have his brother cussing again when just yesterday Sam uttering a crude word would have made him freeze, "I guess it's personal, huh."

"It's personal, alright," Dean tells him, laying the cup on the table again, "My pride's wounded. My honour's gone. My ego's been trampled. The only silver lining I can see is that at least they didn't put me in diapers. I want them dead more than ever, Sam, but that's only part because of me. Mostly, it's that I've been the vic now. I know what the people they've killed went through, and I don't want a single more child suffering that way."

He eyes his brother darkly before sipping his scalding coffee again as if it could burn away his anger.

"Because that's what they are. Kids. They may be thirty, forty-years-old kids, but they're still just kids. I can't forget and I can't forgive. They're going to die and I'll personally make sure it's every last one of them, Sammy."

Sam nods slowly.  
"Alright," he says and follows the other's lead by taking a sip of his coffee to drive away the mental image of a child dying, "I hear you." 

Dean nods.

"But," Sam says then, placing the cup back down and forcing his brain on a different note, "First - I've still got something for you."

"Huh?"

"A couple things I saved. Sit tight," he says with a chuckle and stands up.  
He walks to his bed and pulls out the last gift-wrapped item and the envelope balancing on top of it from underneath. He brings those things to the table, moves the pony to the side and places them in its place while Dean eyes them suspiciously. 

"Open the envelope first," Sam tells him, grinning.

"Alright," Dean replies sounding unconvinced - he reaches for the envelope and snatches it from on top of the package, and he tears it open with ease.

When he turns it around, a pile of photographs slides out onto the table. On top of them is a picture of Sam wearing a purple dress in a changing room, and Sam has to lean back into his chair to deal with the embarrasment that dwells inside his chest even though it was a conscious decision to take and include that picture.

"That's your present," he says with a mortified grin.

"What? This?" Dean asks, picking up the picture and fanning it before Sam - he's clearly unsure what to make of it, trapped between curiosity and the merciless fit of laughter that Sam can hear coming in his voice.

"Yeah, that," Sam chuckles, "Both of those things, really - firstly, the picture, you know, I thought that, really, I'll never outlive the teasing, so that's one, but also - I figured, you know, it'd make you feel... better, maybe, it'd help you - I don't know. I don't know what I was thinking. Anyway, before you crack up, the dress is yours. It's inside that present. You don't have to open it now and you don't have to ever do it, or you can give it to your next big girlfriend, but my point is - you liked the clothes you had, so I figured, maybe this - maybe you'd like to carry that over. That maybe you'd like to keep it. So I found a bigger version. I mean, a lot bigger."

There's a flash of something soft in Dean's gaze - he seems touched, genuinely touched, by the gesture. Then the look hardens and it begins: he looks at the picture again and throws his head back, laughing, palm over his stomach, before pointing at Sam and then tapping the picture with his finger.

"This is the worst thing I've ever seen, Sam," he barely manages to wheeze out, "This is - you look - you're _wearing a dress._ "

Sam nods. He breathes calmly through the other's cackling, somehow managing to avoid pointing out that Dean's worn a dress for the past two weeks fairly regularly, and takes it as it comes. When it finally subdues, Dean slaps the photo back on the table and chuckles wearily before drinking from his cup like it could rejuvenate him after all that laughing.

"I'm pinning this somewhere," he announces gleefully, "So that I'll never lose it. It's going on a spot of honour and if you _ever_ find a girl again, I'm showing it to them."

"Alright," Sam chuckles in a tired fashion, "It might even bring me closer to her, so I don't really mind, either way. Anyway, the other photos - I think you should look them through. They're not all there - I took a couple more yesterday - but I obviously haven't had the chance to get them printed yet, so..."

Dean's eyes dart back to the pile of photos, and Sam watches his expression change when he realises what they are. They're pictures of him, of his child self, from every day he spent in that state. Sam took them religiously, sneaking one in and one out every time Dean wasn't watching, or even when he was, with his phone out as inconspicuously as he could to preserve the authenticity, and most of all, to avoid making Dean uncomfortable. And here they are: pictures of every and each day that they spent together, of the things they did together, of the places they went together. Of Dean eating breakfast in the diner, of him playing with Jack outside, of him and their friends building the snow yeti at the contest - they're all there. On Sam's phone, pictures of Dean riding on the sled are still undeveloped, but they're there as securely as the rest of them. Safe, unfading, and quite like memories in physical form.

"I thought - since there aren't many of us as kids," he explains, "Everyone should have something. And this has been... I don't know, special? I felt like we should remember it. So I... made sure we would."

Dean nods stiffly. He looks through the pictures in silence, and sometimes, a smile crosses his lips or his eyes glow with warmth, and Sam knows he made the right choice, even if it felt odd at times to take those photos.

"And you've got some of yesterday, too?" Dean asks.

"Yeah," Sam promises, "Of you on the sled, of us opening the presents, of the Christmas dinner, of the tree, they're all still here. I thought I'd drop by today to develop them, I wanted to have them there once you'd be back to normal, but I didn't expect - I didn't expect for the curse to wear off yet, so I couldn't get them in time."

Dean nods.  
  
"Thanks, Sam," he breathes out and manages a trembling smile, "I love them."

 


	13. Epilogue

* * *

 

Leaving that motel room behind a few days later aches somewhere deep inside Sam; it feels like leaving home, something he's never really had, and therefore never had to leave behind before. Dean doesn't show it, but Sam suspects it feels like something similar for him, as he's awfully quiet the whole morning as they pack up and move their things inside the car once more. The weather's clear and sunny, and the motel room's air sparkles with dust particles floating in the air as Sam gazes inside for the last time from the doorway. Dean's small clothes are clean and folded on the chair with a note on top announcing they're finders, keepers; the two of them do nothing with them, after all. The sound of the door locking behind them makes Sam swallow hard, and he feels a pull or a weight follow him all the way to the reception where they turn in the keys and pay the bill. They've just barely got the money.

"Guess first stop's some dive where we can earn our next meal," Dean notes with a hint of bitterness in his voice. Still, from inside his canvas bag, the tail of the orca toy still pokes out: Sam takes note of it with a hint of fondness lingering within him. At least Dean doesn't seem to regret where any of that money went, he figures.

"First," he says after moment, "speaking of meals - I'm starving. How about breakfast?"

Dean chuckles.  
"Well, you know me," he replies with a grin, "Always here for some bacon."

Sam smiles.  
"Of course you are," he huffs.

Instinctively, he's about to take the driver's side, but then Dean's palm is there over his shoulder, stopping him. They look at each other, both still as they work through what just happened, but then Dean's grin widens again.

"I think you've had enough driving for one life, Sammy," he tells him and pushes him off, "Through your own door, shotgun."

Sam rolls his eyes as he turns and moves around the car. Yeah, he's almost forgotten how that feels like, to sit down on the side he most often takes and just watch the sceneries pass by. In this case, the scenery he ends up viewing is the same they've driven through for weeks. The diner is where it's always been, but once they've parked, Dean suddenly hesitates.

"You know," he says then, thoughtful, "Uh - I think it's better that you order to go."

Sam looks at him questioningly before realisation suddenly dawns on him and he nods.  
"Yeah," he admits, "I think that might confuse some people, so - yeah."

"We'll eat on the road somewhere. A truck stop or whatever. The usual."

"The usual," Sam repeats, smiling crookedly as he steps out the car, "I'll be back in a minute."

He walks into the diner and stands in the line until the man before him has paid for his coffee and the cinnamon roll he always eats with it. The woman behind the counter, Allison, looks at him and her face brightens up at recognition.

"You know my order," Sam chuckles at her, "but double the coffee."

"Long night?"

Sam nods.  
"You have no idea," he sighs, leaning to the counter as he waits.

Eight minutes later, he's out again. Dean reaches greedily for his bag but Sam keeps it away from him.

"Truck stop, remember?"

"I just wanted the scent," Dean grunts as he starts up the car again, "but fine, keep it."

"I will."

They drive out of town this time. There's a truck stop nearby with the snow there filthy with mud and woodchips, and they eat their breakfast there: it hasn't quite gone cold yet, but it would have tasted better inside the diner, or at least Sam feels that way. Sometimes, he finds himself gazing at the rear-view mirror as if hoping to catch one last glimpse of the town, and sometimes he knows that Dean's watching him. It'll take a while to get over this one, Sam thinks as their eyes meet for a fleeting moment before Dean turns away again and seems to concentrate on his bacon once more. Fifteen minutes later, they start driving again. This time for California: it'll be a long, long damn ride to come.

 

* * *

 

The coven has an epicenter. It takes them a couple months to figure where they went as they chase them through California to Texas and finally Nebraska through Oklahoma and Kansas. They're always just about close enough to chase the witches out before the victim count goes up, but that's the best they can do, it seems - until, finally, the chase leads them to an abandoned factory in some small town far away from everything. It seems they've used it before: the walls are covered with sigils of all sorts, protective and otherwise, and making their way through the halls and corridors as quietly as possible is a difficult task. Far worse comes the fight itself. There are five witches, all of them ancient, all of them more than beyond capable with magic, and they've got two kids unconscious and laid on an altar. They don't go down easy, nor do they go down quietly; the last witch alive grabs the girl and holds a knife to her throat. When the bullet hits her between the eyes and she goes down from Sam's shot, Dean's there to grab the child before she hits the floor with her. She wakes up slowly, blue eyes widening; Dean holds her close and tells her it's alright.

And it is. It finally is alright.

 

* * *

 

The kids kneel behind a large container marked fragile while the brothers check the premises once more; it seems fitting somehow as Sam kneels in front of them to check they're both alright, weary and bruised himself from the fight before. Dean's fingers cross through his hair as he steps to his side.

"Let's go, kids," he tells them in a rather comforting, if tired, voice; "We've cleaned up and it should be safe to leave now. The further we get, though, the safer it'll be, so - chop chop."

The girl nods and rushes for Dean, clinging to his jeans, but the boy cowers further.  
"What will happen now?" he asks, his voice barely a whisper and yet trembling with every syllable, "Where will we go?" 

Sam raises his brows. Yeah.

"We've got someone who can look after you until you're back to normal," Dean speaks up, however; "I've already contacted her and she's got a warm meal out for you kids when we get that far."

Their eyes meet and Dean's lips form up the name _Jody_ in silence. Sam nods, relieved. The boy in front of him nods uneasily as well and his protective curl loosens up somewhat. Sam reaches for him and pulls him in by the arm, running his hand through his black curly hair, shedding off some dirt from it.

"Come," he says gently, sliding his hand down the boy's arm all the way down to his hand, "We should really go, just in case."

The boy nods, and together, the four of them head up the stairs to ground level. The air gets colder the further up they move, and once they're out again, the crisp night feels like a gift from heavens after the foul air downstairs. The brothers help the kids on the backseat of the car and pack up on the front themselves, and the engine roars to life with a shudder running through the old Impala's frame. A soft sigh escapes Dean as they turn away, wheels bumping into wet holes in the asphalt, and then they're on the way up again to Sioux Falls; it'll be another long ride with two strangers with them, but Sam feels prepared to take it on as long as at the end of it there'll be a good home-made meal and a friendly face to welcome them in. At sunrise, both kids on the backseat are fast asleep, and it's just the two of them again on the road, as always, as it should be; Sam feels Dean watching as he, too, falls asleep, if only for a good twenty minutes or so. When he stirs, his brother's humming along to one of his old casettes.

 

* * *

 

Much later, the two of them stand by Jody's doorsteps looking as ragged and weary as ever. She welcomes them in with a big grin, but only briefly, as her focus turns to the two kids they've brought with them. Dean's explained it all to her, sans his own experiences, and she's really prepared for them. There are toys on the floor, toys that she's saved over from her own son, and makeshift beds already laid out for them in case they feel tired after the long drive. The scent of a warm meal lingers in the air, and it draws the brothers into the kitchen where they all eat together - it's a happy dinner, and Jody even tries to make them stay for the night. Dean looks like he wishes he could, but they've got themselves a motel room already, somewhere they can stay without bothering Jody any more than they already have. It feels polite to limit her burden, and so they pack up in the car once more to drive, if only a few minutes this time.

They get the key for their room and Sam sees Dean's arms shaking as he pulls out his bag from the back of the car to bring it in with him. Sam feels the same: exhaustion simply isn't leaving his form today, not after having a close brush with death down at the factory, and very little sleep since. The call of a soft bed, however unfamiliar, seems irresistible in his head. Inside, he feels the longing again - it's stayed far from him for a couple good weeks, but now, perhaps called back by the two kids that somehow reminded him of the way Dean was after his own transformation, he misses that one motel room like home again. It aches in his chest as he sets his bag beside his own bed and glances at the bathroom door, then the window and the table that all look very different and yet so similar to the one they've left behind: they're all unfamiliar in the same way that room was, just as lacking in personality, just as used by so many strangers before them. He catches Dean's eyes and sees some hesitation in him as well, but they don't seem to have the words.

"You did good today," Dean finally says, "I mean, we're finished with this case, it's - over. It's really over."

Sam nods.  
"I really hope so," he says. 

"We never did find out about that spell, though," Dean chuckles, sitting on his bed with a long, drawn-out sigh.

A hint of pain lingers in Sam's chest, although he can't really place it; did some part of him really hope they'd find out the ingredients, the ritual, just so they could live a period of time the same way they'd lived the past December? It'd be naive, if not downright stupid, to hope for that - they'd never use the spell, either way. They couldn't. Even if it had no cost and no risk, something a spell like that would never come without, they'd never have to time or the safety to come back to it. It seems ridiculous to hope for something like that, and yet... there's distinctive longing inside Sam, longing he can't suppress. Instead, he smiles a little bitterly as he sits on his own bed, crawls on it and crosses his legs. His toes twitch, and to suppress the weird restlessness inside him, he drags off his smelly socks and drops them on top of his bag.

"It's better that way," he forces himself to finally say.

Dean makes some indecisive sound in response, and Sam knows he feels as conflicted about it as he does. He avoids Sam's eyes for a long time before letting out a small chuckle, and he reaches inside his bag to pull out something. When Sam recognises it as the orca toy, his breath hitches a little. The stuffed animal crosses the space between them in flight as Dean chucks it towards Sam: it hits him in the chest with a soft thud, and Sam grabs it before it falls on the bed. He examines it for a moment without speaking, but a small smile crawls on his lips anyway.

"I kinda miss it," he finds himself confessing, and to his surprise, Dean nods.

"Not the worst thing that ever happened to me, either," the older brother admits.  
He's quiet for a moment before letting out a conflicted small laugh.  
"I mean, it was, in a way. I've never felt that stupid or useless in my entire life, not since I _was_ that stupid and useless, but - it was like a vacation and I guess we both needed one after all."

Sam nods. 

"So I guess - missing it would be normal. I mean, people miss their vacations, right?"

"Right."

They're quiet for a little while before Sam stands up and hands the orca back to Dean.

"Anyway," he says with a crooked smile, "I'm gonna take a shower and tuck in. You need something? A bed-time story or a cup of hot chocolate?"

"Shut up, Sam," Dean groans and whacks him on the lower back with the orca even as Sam stiffly tries to dodge the blow.

The younger brother laughs and turns around for Dean, and then, quite instinctively, bends down and presses a kiss over his forehead. Some undecipherable sound escapes Dean, but he doesn't pull back, and once Sam's standing up again, he looks timid and it's easy to recognise him as the child he was before. Sam's smile is crooked when he shrugs and turns to leave.

"I wouldn't mind some hot chocolate," he says as he drags the bathroom door open, "Mind boiling some water?"

"No problem," Dean replies, his voice a little distant, "I guess I could use a cup, too."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I completely forgot y'all didn't get the epilogue. Someone should have nudged me. Anyway, here it is! Thank you for sticking along with the ride, it's been one of my favourite ones.


End file.
